Lord of Annihilation

Chapter 325: Starting the Labors.

"Alright, let's stop here," a woman, completely clad in dark-golden robes, raised her head and spoke.

Her head was covered by a hood hiding away all of her facial features and shrouding them in absolute darkness, save for her glowing, golden eyes.

Floating in a lotus posture before her was another woman. She was dressed in a dark-violet armor that closely hugged her mature figure.

The two women were naturally; Ka'lor'ah and Olivia. Currently, the consciousness of the duo was inside Olivia's mindspace.

Opening her eyes, Olivia relaxed her posture and curiously asked, "Why are we stopping now? I can still continue."

Hearing her words, Ka'lor'ah lightly scoffed and answered, "Yeah, no."

"This session has already gone on for much longer than usual. Any more and you will face the risk of your soul collapsing," she warned.

A scared expression appeared on Olivia's face as she quickly checked on her soul. Other than being more transparent than usual, the violet-colored soul looked no different and seemed to be safe. Confirming this, she let out a sigh of relief.

"Don't be too hasty, kid," Ka'lor'ah casually spoke while reaching out with her hands to pat Olivia's head. "You're already making progress way faster than I expected. Just exercise caution and you'll be alright."

Ka'lor'ah then proceeded to ruffle Olivia's hair playfully before being interrupted by the latter.

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Using her hands to slap away her teacher's rowdy hand, Olivia replied, "I know. It's just that…I feel so close to entering that next stage that I can't wait."

Clenching her fists tightly, she continued, "The sooner I can grow stronger, the sooner I'll be able to fight beside Lucius and better help him."

She then quickly shook her head and thanked Ka'lor'ah, "Thank you for spending your time to help me with this, teacher."

Waving her hands, Ka'lor'ah replied, "Don't mention it. It's only my job as a teacher to help her student. Plus…"

A playful grin appeared on her mouth hidden beneath the hood as she continued, "I'm also curious about the Domain you want to form. Wanting to use not one, but two High-Level Rules, I don't know if you're brave or suicidal."

"I don't know myself," Olivia replied with a smile. She then looked at her hands and continued, "But I have a feeling that this is my path forward."

"An interesting feeling," Ka'lor'ah muttered while rubbing her chin. "You are an interesting one, Lil' Ollie."

"Well, anyway," clapping her hands, Ka'lor'ah continued, "Let's leave and see if Lucius has left his cave."

"Do you know how much time has passed?" Olivia asked.

"I have no idea." Ka'lor'ah shrugged her shoulders and snapped her fingers.

The dark blankness surrounding the duo instantly started to dissipate, as Olivia felt herself waking from the induced slumber. She momentarily felt like she was floating through empty space, as all of her senses were being inhibited.

A few seconds passed before Olivia regained her senses, immediately after which she spread out her soul senses and established a Field of 5m around her. This process had already become second nature to her and was similar to breathing.

Instantly, a frown appeared on Olivia's beautiful features as she looked at the unfamiliar surroundings through her soul senses. Her mind immediately went into combat mode as her body stiffened.

'Wasn't I supposed to be on the hull, outside of the spaceship? Where am I?' she thought to herself, as she felt an immense weight bear down upon her.

Opening her eyes, she immediately stood up and assumed a combat posture. Thorn, which was napping inside her sword sheath, hurriedly flew into her hands after detecting its owner's mental state.

"Whoa, where are we?" Ka'lor'ah voice sounded from behind her.

The two found themselves upon a vast, white plain. Strangely, the ground was a little coarse and soft and was nowhere similar to the solid land that the duo was used to.

Looking up, they found the sky above them to be far yet strangely close. It seemed to only be a few hundred meters above them, instead of the usual distance of hundreds of kilometers.

The walls or rather, boundaries at their sides were also similar, being far yet strangely within reach.

The first question that appeared within both their minds was this; 'Is this a trap? Did we get stuck in a cage?' Followed by, 'What happened to Lucius?'

Just as Ka'lor'ah was about to check the soul link between them, they saw the wall in front of them, which seemed to be few dozen kilometers away in distance, open up.

Bright light filleted in through the opening, causing the two ladies to flinch. Just as they prepared themselves to face a threat, they heard a cold, familiar voice speak.

"Just in time. Jump down and follow me. The Twelve Labors are going to start in two hours."

With his jet-black hair scattered behind his back and an eerie-crimson scythe floating beside him, Lucius, who had arrived just in time of Olivia's awakening, instructed.

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"Whoa! Everything around us is so big!" Olivia exclaimed as she surveyed her surroundings with excitement.

"I've read so much about the Land of the Giants, yet seeing it in person is a completely different experience," Ka'lor'ah remarked, sharing similar excitement.

Lucius, who was leading them from the front, did not speak nor stop them. He simply continued to walk in nonchalance while leading the duo to the trial grounds.

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The Land of the Giants was a massive, artificially constructed planet that was the homeland of two races; the aggressive, battle-loving Giants and the reclusive, heaven-blessed builders, the Titans.

The Land of the Giants was an artificial construct of the great Titans and was a relic of the First Era. It was built after the original homeland of the Titans was destroyed during the Great War.

Since its initial construction, the Land of the Giants has been constantly upgraded and expanded, and now accounts for nearly 5% of the entire Universe!

Simply put, it was massive to an unimaginable degree.

They occupied the most area out of any other race in the middle-regions and are one of its strongest, most ancient races to still exist.

Now, 5% of the entire space in the Middle Regions might sound like an unimaginable number. One might even wonder, what was the point of having such a massive space? Wouldn't it take its inhabitants decades or even centuries to travel from one end to the other?

While this was a faultless and sensible question, that was only the case from the perspective of the 'smaller races'. For you see, what was considered 'massive' for the majority of the other races in the Universe, was normal for the Giants and the Titans.

To emphasize, a regular, adult Giant would range from anywhere between 100 to 150 meters tall in height, while a regular, adolescent Giant would range from 30 to 90 meters in height. Of course, their lifespans greatly differed from the humans, since being an adult in Giant life, meant being 350 years old at minimum.

The two Giants whom Lucius met could only be called children, with respect to their ages.

In short, a fully grown Giant was roughly eighty times the size of an average human. It only made sense for their living environment to be of similar proportions.

But hold on…that still doesn't warrant for 5% of the known Universe! We are literally talking about trillions upon trillions of kilometers of land here! Even the Giants would not be able to cover that!

Well, that's where the Titans, the Progenitors and the Greatest Builders/Architects in the entire Universe and a Grade 6 life form, came in. After all, Land of the Giants was originally built as their residence.

An infant Titan was roughly 600-800 kilometers in size. A teen Titan was measured in the thousands of kilometers, while an adult…well, you get the idea.

They are simply humongous!

But still, you might ask, even if there are thousands, even millions of Titans in existence, it would still not warrant this much space! Do you even understand how much 5% of the Universe is?

Well, I do and there is a reason why the Land of the Giants was so pointlessly large. And to answer in brief, it was because of an ancient tradition of the Titans.

This tradition stated that all Titans, upon reaching adulthood (2000 years of age. Total lifespan is 10,000-15,000 depending on lifestyle choices), must leave the land of their parents and create their own. Their lands could be as vast and massive as they so desired but must be completely independent of already existing lands.

Once their independent lands were constructed and added to the Land of the Giants, the Titans spent most of their lives within these lands.

What if they get bored of staying in one place? Well, you could always build more.

In fact, it was seen as a symbol of superiority between the Titans to have larger areas than their peers. Their lands were a direct representation of their wealth, status, and power.

Having said that, with the passage of countless years and the addition of hundreds of Titans every now and then, one can see how such a large landmass came into existence.

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The above information was explained to the curious Olivia by the wise Ka'lor'ah, just in time for the party to reach the grounds of the trials.