"So, do you have anything else for me?" I asked with a smile, extremely careful to let not a single speck of my aura spread out of the shields. I am burning my essence, and if the old snake got to know about it, then it would be a game over for me. I would have no fear if it had been outside, but we were in the domain of the old snake, a very powerful domain that could inform it of the slightest fluctuation; I have to be extremely careful with everything I do. "Humph!" It hmphed and disappeared; not melded into the domain, just disappeared, and in a couple of seconds, the domain too vanished, absorbed by the old snake, who had finally left. I wish I could take a sigh of relief, but those expressions I had seen in the old snake's eyes before it disappeared wouldn't let me. The greed in the Grimm's eyes seemed to have increased, and so is madness to get what it wants, and now, the old snake won't stop until it gets what it wants. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶 "Fuck it," I cursed and waved my hand, and a teleportation formation came out. Old snake wants my body, but he will not get it, even if I die; I have created many countermeasures, some learned from the Grimms themselves. I am aware of what kind of benefits my body could provide, especially to the Grimm of old snakes' caliber. It is only thinking about the curse; if it knew about other things, I don't think it would have left. The formation stabilized, and I stepped into the formation; a second later, I appeared in Pyramid, in the central command. "Welcome back, Lord Zaar," said Lord Whitmore; I nodded and sat on one of the corner chairs, where usually the Grand Lord used to sit when they were alone. I did not talk to anyone; I just sat and finally turned off the burning-off essence, which made tiredness come crashing down on me, that I just and I did. I had not slept for quite a while and had fought two battles and healed six Grand Lords, on top of burning my blood. Saying I need a rest would be an understatement. Sleeping will help me quickly recover my essence and will also take this tiredness away; I have already been told by a couple of Grand Lords to take rest whenever I can; with constant battles, one could be awake for days without sleep. While I am sleeping; my clones are working, working on the curse and the viper, I had caught, which is now in my core; inside the spatial domain, bound in hundreds of chains, which are slowly sucking the divine energy out of it and sending to quern, where it is getting processed. I had slept for three hours before I woke up; when I opened my eyes, I saw there were more people in the room than when I had slept. Aside from Supreme Commander and her sister, Lady Hera, there is also Lord Sylvian, Patriarch Bradford, Lord Gatlin, and Matron Mavis; only Supreme Commander and Lord Gatlin are present with their real bodies, while others are in projection. The rest were fighting; the battle over the thing was raging, and I was quite relieved, too; no one on our side had been seriously harmed to die. Ashlyn is also fighting with them, but unlike them, who have taken their opponents, she did not; she is flashing throughout the battles, attacking Grimms before disappearing; she is the reason why they hadn't gained the edge over the humans despite having twice a number. I did not immediately walk toward them; instead, I closed my eyes and appeared in my core; both of my clones were working on the curse, and in these three hours, nine we count the time, they had made quite great progress in the curse. I looked at progress before turning to the viper, which had now become quite pale and small; more than 70% of its energy was already being harnessed. It is now in the quern, where it is getting purified. "It will take a while for all this divinity to get processed," I said to myself as I turned to the quern. There is not much physical change in it since the first generation; it is still nine-plated and completely transparent. Though to me, it looked magnificent, it is likely because I know what it is capable of doing, doing things that the first generation were not even capable of doing; it had already proven its worth in these past few hours. Six plates of quern had filled with the curse; the first place, where the curse entered, is filled to the brim, and there is no space remaining. As soon as the little space is opened, it is immediately filled with the curse from the viper. The quern is extremely powerful, but the divine curse is not easy to deal with; too, despite all its power and the suppression that now my core cast now has the power to weaken the resistance of everything. The divine energy had only been purified to the sixth plate; it is extremely hard to purify it further. It is divine energy, not common energy, but if I can process it to ninth place, I would have a divine curse so pure; that it will help in my research of the curse tremendously. Though it would not be easy. Earlier my shield had used the curse energy, which had much less purity than the curse processed by the first plate. That time, I was not focused on purifying but on taking out harmful elements, so it could be absorbed by my shields to strengthen them further. If I had pure divine energy, purified at sixth plats, then even gorged wouldn't have been able to bring a single crack on my shields. They will be extremely helpful when I face the divine attacks of the old snake next time, but that is likely, as the divine energy is not easy to gain, and the old snake would have taken years to gather divine energy. Unless, of course, the old snake was willing to use that option, which it would not; even someone as Grimms would think ten times before using that option, not because they are not capable, but because it is an option similar to killing a chicken for an egg, and Grimm are smart enough to not use that option unless they are really forced too. I even heard the Grimms had made it forbidden; after the thing that happened in the last epoch of war. The battle against the snake had cost me a lot; I spent divine crystals, the useful resources in the world like water, especially the highest grade one. My heart bleeds whenever I think about it, but it was necessary, and I will do it again, with all the resources in my core, as my life is more important than any resources. I could get the resources, but not life; once it had ended, there was no coming back from it. So, I will never sacrifice it for any material thing unless that thing could help my race.