Chapter 400: Ragnarok evolved Ethan stood in the center of his world, "Primordia",watching the scene unfold. "You should have left this world, little girl," Ethan said coldly. Selene Alucard, the vampire princess, was enjoying every bit of this torture. She turned her head toward Ragnarok, her face twisting into a jagged, psychopathic smile. "Your master flew away and left you here to be tortured," she sneered, looking back down at Ragnarok, who was pinned under her gravity magic. "Do you wish to become my pet? If you crawl and lick my boots, I might let you go." Ragnarok’s face was pressed into the dirt, but his golden eyes burned with a fire that no amount of pain could put out. "You can torture me as much as you want," he wheezed, his voice sounding like grinding stones. "An Ancient demon only acknowledges one master in their life. You... you will never be him." "Boring!" Selene muttered calmly. She kicked him in the ribs, the sound of cracking bone echoing through the clearing. She looked at him with pure disdain. "You have the bloodline of the Origin Demon race. It’s thin, it’s pathetic, but it’s there. I wanted to make you my pet and nurture that bloodline." "Just imagine... I could tell those arrogant bastards that a Demon is my dog. It would be fun, don’t you think? Hahahaha!" She didn’t just want his body. She was using her mental powers to shred his soul. Ragnarok let out a scream that tore through the trees, a sound of absolute agony. Ethan didn’t move his feet. He simply snapped his fingers. From his fingertip, a single drop of blood materialized. It wasn’t red. It was a deep, swirling gold, pulsing with the power of a hundred million stolen destinies. This drop of blood flew through the air and sank into Ragnarok’s neck. This was more than healing. By giving Ragnarok his blood, Ethan was officially naming him as one of his Five Generals, the beings who would stand by his side until the end of time itself. The moment the blood touched Ragnarok’s heart, the world seemed to stop. Ragnarok’s eyes flew open. A surge of power exploded from him so violently that Selene was blown back several hundred feet. Ragnarok’s cultivation level didn’t just climb. It leaped. He hit the Progenitor realm in a second. He smashed through to the Primordial realm in another. The energy around him was so dense it turned into black lightning. Selene scrambled to her feet, her face was pale. For the first time in her life, she felt true, soul-chilling panic. "What... what is going on?" She tried to raise her hand to strike him, to kill him before he finished changing. But a golden barrier shimmered into existence around Ragnarok. Her attack hit the barrier and shattered like glass. The vampire girl was a Genesis realm being, a goddess in this small world, but she was nothing infront of Ethan, so her attack did nothing to Ethan’s barrier too. Ragnarok’s aura was still rising. It surpassed the Genesis realm and finally stabilized at the Axiom Dominion Realm. Then, the real change began. The diluted Origin Demon blood inside Ragnarok began to boil and thicken. He was no longer just a hybrid. He was becoming a creature of Law. The Law of Darkness poured into him. His body grew. His skin was replaced by obsidian-colored scales. Two massive wings of pure shadow ripped out of his back, stretching wide enough to blot out the sun. His face became a mask of terrifying, demonic majesty. Selene was shaking so hard she could barely stand. "No way... a Demon Count form? How? That form is only for the high-born nobles of the Origin Demon race! How can a pathetic hybrid gain the rank of a Count?" Ragnarok stood up. He was now ten feet tall, a titan of shadow. He looked down at Selene like a human looks at a bug. That look broke her. Her royal pride collided with her terror. "You... you forced me!" she screamed, her eyes turning cold. She reached for the pendant on her neck and crushed it. BOOM! A terrifying pressure surged out of the broken jewelry. It was the protective soul fragment of an Eternal Sovereign, her grandfather. Ragnarok didn’t even flinch. He reached out a clawed hand, grabbed Selene by her throat, and lifted her into the air like a helpless chicken. He was fuming with a rage that had been building for days. He knew his Master was watching. He knew he was safe. And he wanted blood. The soul fragment of the Duke appeared in the air. It was a towering, ghostly figure of a handsome man with red eyes. "How dare you harm my granddaughter? Leave her this instant, and I will leave your corpse intact!" The pressure was enough to kill a Primodial easily. But Ethan stepped forward. With a casual motion, Ethan drew the Sword of Infinity. He didn’t use a flashy technique. He just slashed once. The soul fragment, an Eternal Sovereign level entity, was erased as if it had never existed. Ethan’s current strength, backed by his sword, was at the very peak of that realm. A mere fragment of a soul was nothing to him. "Noooo!" Selene screamed. Her last hope had been snuffed out like a candle. She tried to activate a second fragment, her father’s. But the shock was too much. She lost her mind, babbling and shouting nonsense. Ragnarok opened his massive maw, ready to swallow her whole and end her existence. "Wait," Ethan said, appearing suddenly between the demon and the girl. Ragnarok stopped instantly. "Master?" "You can torture her," Ethan said, his eyes cold as ice. "But you cannot kill her. Not yet. I need her bloodline. An Original Race bloodline is too valuable to waste." "As you wish, Master," Ragnarok growled. He dropped her to the ground and began to use his new dark powers to weave a cage of shadow around her soul, mimicking the very pain she had put him through. Outside the primordial creature, millions of miles away in the origin world, a man sat bolt upright on a throne. Duke Alucard of the Genesis Vampire race roared in fury. He felt his soul fragment shatter. Someone had not only ignored his threat but had destroyed a piece of his essence. "I will find you," he hissed. He vanished from his hall and appeared in the "Garden", a massive territory where his family kept trillions of creatures as "livestock". He couldn’t immediately tell which creature held his granddaughter because Ethan had masked the aura. But the Duke was an Eternal Sovereign. He didn’t care about collateral damage. He waved his hand, and trillions of creatures were pulled toward him by a vacuum of power. He began searching their inner worlds one by one, destroying any that displeased him. Inside the creature, Ethan clicked his tongue. "That bastard wants to die, it seems." Ethan knew he wasn’t ready to fight the entire Vampire race yet. Their Progenitor was a Source Authority realm being, someone who could rewrite destiny on a whim. If Ethan stepped outside now, he would be swarmed. But he didn’t need to step outside to strike. The Sword of Infinity could cut through timelines and dimensions. Ethan closed his eyes and felt the Duke’s location through the connection of the shattered soul fragment. He swung the sword. A beam of white light sliced through the rift of space. It traveled out of the primordial creature’s body, bypassed the physical world, and hit the Duke directly in his chest. The Duke didn’t even have time to scream. His "Source", the core of his power, was cracked. He fell to the grass of his own garden, unconscious and bleeding golden blood. Ethan then turned his attention to the primordial creature they were currently living inside. The giant beast was trembling. It could feel the war happening in its gut and the gods fighting on its skin. "I am a being from your internal universe," Ethan sent a mental message to the creature’s soul. "I don’t want you to die. You should run from this garden." "I... I cannot," the creature whimpered. "Every one of us has the Seal of the Alucard family on our souls. If I run, they will blink, and I will explode." "I can remove the soul seal, you just have to flee.", he replied. Ethan slashed his sword again. This time, the strike was invisible. It didn’t cut flesh. It cut the spiritual chains binding the creature to the Alucard family. For the first time in millions of years, the primordial beast felt a weight lift from its soul. It was free. "Thank you," the creature whispered. Without waiting a second longer, the beast vanished into the void, flying toward the Great Forest, a lawless territory where even the Alucard family feared to go. Ethan sighed with relief. He looked back at Ragnarok, who was systematically breaking Selene’s spirit. "Keep her alive," Ethan reminded him. "And no sexual torture." With that, Ethan walked away. He entered the time field.