CHAPTER 130: | INHERITANCE? NO, IT’S FAR TOO LACKING

  ---

  Haa.... I let out a long, heavy sigh, throwing my head back against the grandeur of the chamber.

  I slowly peeled open my sandy, grit-heavy eyelids, forcing my vision to focus.

  Above me, the murals etched into the high ceilings were moving, shifting not like stone, but with a fluidity that mocked the inanimate nature of the rock.

  There, I witnessed a scenery so incredulous that tens of thousands of written words could not capture its breadth, nor could the poetry of a world-class sage truly depict its essence.

  It was like the graceful gushing of celestial rivers streaming down into a lake, a cascade where ten thousand carps took their turns to jump in a display of excellence.

  Even the word 'elegance' felt too hollow, too weak to back up the sheer majesty of what I was seeing.

  It was beautiful.

  I watched the ten thousand Valkyries move in perfect synchronization.

  There were no imperfections, only the crystallization of a lifetime’s worth of effort.

  Merely looking at them would hypnotize a weaker soul into a trance of intoxicating allure, a high-level charm that no man or woman could hope to escape.

  It would only heighten their desires, a desperate hunger to catch another glimpse of those luscious, fair limbs that were colored in a myriad of breathtaking tones.

  There were ones that were as pure and pale as a fresh sheet of canvas, while others contradicted that purity with a skin as dark and mysterious as the night sky.

  But looking at these supple legs, sculpted with a divine ratio that left no room for excess fat, would make one completely ignore the triviality of skin tone.

  Be it green, yellow, red, or a shade some might ignorantly consider hideous, like the void of black... since when did people judge beauty by the pigment of their skin?

  We men of culture judge beauty not by the color of the dermis, but by the shape of the body and the soul.

  We judge by how luscious the skin feels to the eye, how supple the curves of the bust and hips, and above all, how confident they are in their own existence.

  Such was a beauty that none could ignore.

  Thus, it was a sight I was blessed to witness, directly watching their dance in the sky like the illusory flutter of butterflies, their wings flapping in a rhythm that the wind envied.

  Only, they had no wings.

  These Valkyries stepped upon the air itself, gracefully maneuvering their bodies in complex formations.

  At the center, the Empress stood at the forefront.

  She smiled in delight, raising her left hand while resting her right hand on the curve of her hip.

  She danced with the grace of a swan, each step leaving no trace, silent as a mischievous fox hunting through thick winter snow.

  Her lips parted, and she muttered in a voice that was soft, yet commanded the attention of the soul.

  "Twilight is the palace of the one who is called Pure. I am without a name, but I once served a Great Lord whose kindness reached even the black hearts of the devils. But he, a great man, sacrificed himself for the Great Cause... and I, one of his many saints, lost my memories at the moment of his death. Now, carelessly wandering in these vast lands without him, with my sisters... I alone shall pass this ordeal that he once spoke of."

  SHHHING.

  The ten thousand Valkyries lifted their spears, the weapons glinting with the italics of glory.

  They smiled softly, a fleeting expression of peace, and in the next second, they vanished like a gust of wind traveling through the world.

  The illusion created by this place turned into a fine mist, swirling before it dissipated completely.

  The ceiling returned to stillness, now only depicting the static image of ten thousand Valkyries striking an elegant pose.

  I couldn't help but smile at the silly sight.

  This inheritance... while it certainly possessed the fundamentals of a 'great inheritance' for those pitiful mongrels who knew nothing of true power, but for me?

  I possess billions of strange techniques, varying from the lowest cantrips to the greatest, world-shattering arts in the entire multiverse.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Compared to my library of knowledge, this paltry of an inheritance seemed to bland, too insignificantly, but still.

  I rubbed my chin.

  This inheritance possessed a specific elegance that was currently lacking in my own imagination, it had potential, it could be elevated into something more formidable with my great knowledge.

  It was a bit lacking right now, yes, but if I tweaked these forms... if I added the essence of a few billion forms from the techniques stored in my head, deriving only their most elegant and graceful movements... and then added the strongest thrusts and slashes into the choreography of the ten thousand Valkyries?

  Then it should come out just like this.

  "TEN THOUSAND AFTERIMAGES OF THE HEAVENLY MAIDENS."

  RRRRRUMBLE.

  The entire chamber stopped for a moment.

  The onlookers glanced at me with sharp curiosity.

  Lumicor, who was busy taking meticulous notes on the enormous Kraken’s muscle structure, frowned as the ground beneath him began to tremble.

  He glanced over at Alister Von Fai, at me, and smiled, knowing immediately that I was the cause of this disturbance.

  He then nodded, already deduced I was trying to create a new technique, Lumicor sighed, the sound heavy with resignation.

  He flicked his hands.

  FWOOSH!

  The world fell into silence as embers of flames rose from the ground.

  They flickered into blinding radiance before conjoining like the twisting tendrils of a kraken, forming into a protective dome.

  It covered the frail onlookers, Samantha, Solia, Ishtar, and Tellus, and then wrapped around himself.

  He didn't want dirt getting into his hair, and certainly not in his ears.

  He sighed yet again, pulled a chair from out of nowhere, and placed it atop the rubbery carcass of the Kraken.

  He sat with exaggerated elegance, watching the small particles of sand rise from the cracks in the ground.

  The grains spread erratically, defying gravity, forming into artificial dunes and whipping up an artificial sandstorm that lashed out everywhere.

  Even Lumicor was amazed at the sight.

  He flipped his notebook, taking notes on how Alister Von Fai could create such a phenomenon while using the absolute least amount of mana.

  It was an incredibly efficient usage of energy, the most difficult kind to pull off without practicing mana manipulation for ages.

  The sight of Lumicor silently taking notes was like a divine being issuing a decree.

  His golden pupils observed the sands rising, swirling, and then condensing.

  KRR-CHK.

  The sands formed into ten thousand golems.

  At first, the golems looked crude, like boulders stacked together by a child.

  But as seconds passed, the coarse shapes refined.

  They took form, turning into ten thousand female humanoids, each one possessing the features of a breathtaking goddess.

  It was shocking that mere sand could truly imitate the intricate structure of a human body to this degree.

  It was an unbelievable sight for Lumicor, who had previously thought sand possessed only a single, dull color.

  What he saw now challenged reality, these female humanoids each had their own skin tones, their own micro-expressions, their own distinct hair textures.

  It was a feat that required unbelievable control.

  These figures were something even he wouldn't be able to imitate easily, the intricate features needed immense focus just to create one, let alone a legion.

  It was like the work of a master sculptor, but different, this sculptor needed godlike mana control just to stack up ten thousand figurines created from fine grains of sand, merely millimeters big.

  It was arduous, yet poetic. Who was insane enough to create something this impressively annoying?

  And was it truly worth it to conjure something this intricately impossible?

  Lumicor sighed, stopped taking notes since it would do him more harm than help to try and comprehend the absurdity, and spoke with genuine curiosity.

  "Is this truly a necessary display of your godlike mana control? To construct something this inefficient just for the clout?"

  I smiled at his question.

  Was it truly necessary to prove myself in this vain display of control?

  The answer was a straight no, not for me, because what I was doing right now wasn't an attempt to prove anything to anyone, instead it was an attempt to put a theory into action.

  I needed to see if it was worth creating this in a battlefield filled with millions of enemies.

  Would these Valkyries, in the number of ten thousand, be able to repel them?

  Would their weak, sandy forms be able to unleash even a single technique?

  This was the question, this was the reason I was putting it to the test.

  I flicked my hands.

  SHH-SHH-SHH.

  Armaments embraced their curves as spears, etched with the italics of glory, appeared in their grainy hands.

  It was a familiar sight, yet not the same, since these sculptures weren't sentient Valkyries.

  They were a sandcastle that would crumble at the slightest brute force.

  I smiled, then flicked my hand again.

  WHOOSH!

  The ten thousand Valkyries leaped from the sandy dunes and appeared in the sky within an instant.

  They looked down, menacingly watching the ground with lifelike pupils.

  Their expressions were soft, gentle, yet deeply arrogant.

  Then, with a single thought from me telling them to move, the Valkyries followed, they took their first step, It wasn't a clumsy attempt, but a movement of absolute elegance.

  I had taken extra caution in crafting their limbs, making sure that they moved with the biomechanics of a real human.

  I smiled and flicked my finger yet again.

  It was time to truly see what they were capable of.

  I flicked my hand, then flicked it again in a rhythmic cadence.

  The Valkyries, who were inanimately hovering in the air, gracefully took a step like butterflies dancing across a field of flowers.

  Just like the river flowing with grace, their hips moved, their arms swayed, and their spears twirled like the heavenly fox dancing in the night sky under the full moon.

  Those watching from below clapped their hands in amazement, their expressions rapt, their words conversing excitedly with each other.

  I paid no mind to the applause.

  I flicked my hand sharply.

  STOP.

  The Valkyries halted instantly, rapping their spears on the solid currents of the air.

  Their eyes let out a murderous intent, it was lifelike, as if they suddenly possessed souls of their own.

  An unbelievable sight to be foretold.

  These Valkyries took one step, then vanished in the next without leaving a trace.

  ZWOOM!

  They reappeared just a few meters above me.

  Their pupils glowed with thick, suffocating killing intent, the tips of the ten thousand spears were pointed directly at me.

  They each used a different variation of the technique.

  "THE FIRST ZEN OF DISTORTION: VALKYRIE STYLE: SPEAR OF THE HIGH HEAVENS."

  They unleashed it with force equivalent to a Zen, a force that I could now unleash not with my physical strength, but entirely with my mana.

  But as soon as the strike began, I flicked my finger.

  PFFT.

  The Valkyries froze.

  They watched me with ten thousand different expressions before bowing deeply.

  As they bowed, their bodies lost cohesion, crumbling back into dust and settling into the dunes below me.

  "Now... this marks the completion of the 'TEN THOUSAND AFTERIMAGES OF THE HEAVENLY MAIDENS'..."

  I paused, considering the weight of the title.

  "Or perhaps I should call it: 'THE FIRST ZEN OF DISTORTION: VALKYRIE STYLE: TEN THOUSAND AFTERIMAGES OF THE HEAVENLY MAIDENS?'"