Cursed Immortality

Chapter 1287: The Stolen Sacrifice (2)

Jacob’s eyes flashed as he commanded, ‘Again!’

The Life Bane Wheel suddenly expanded, and its scarlet ring became enormous, occupying almost the entire chamber.

The black section rotated slowly while the white section pulsed with a faint radiance. Between them, the ghostly purple section flickered like an abyssal flame, its surface covered with countless obscure glyphs that Jacob had yet to fully decipher.

The moment Jacob activated the Wheel again, the immense stream of sacrificial power rushing through the passage was forcibly drawn toward him.

‘WHOOM!’

The entire chamber trembled, and the terrifying energy that should have disappeared into the depths of the citadel suddenly bent toward Jacob as if it had encountered an invisible vortex.

Jacob remained completely motionless as his skeletal body didn’t absorb the energy directly. Instead, the Life Bane Wheel appeared behind him and began processing everything.

‘Spectral Despair!’

The purple section suddenly illuminated, and countless threads of dark-purple energy spread throughout the wheel and intertwined with the incoming stream.

The effect was immediate as the chaotic sacrificial energy began separating; the vitality was extracted first, then the impurities, the fragments of laws, and the deathly characteristics.

Jacob’s Eyes of Judge flickered continuously as he observed every transformation.

‘Interesting…’

He had used Life Devour countless times by now, and he understood its fundamental principle better than almost anyone.

Life Devour didn’t simply absorb energy, but it devoured the underlying vitality contained within something. The problem was that when something contained multiple kinds of power, Life Devour would inevitably come into contact with all of them.

That was also one of the reasons and inspirations behind the creation of Spectral Despair. It allowed him to separate negative life force from the soul without destroying the remaining vitality.

But now, he was seeing something completely different. The sacrificial stream was not simply composed of vitality, as there were too many things mixed inside it, like death, negative energy, soul remnants, law fragments, and something else.

Something Jacob hadn’t noticed clearly before, but he was strangely familiar with it, or at least with one of its aspects known as the Godly Faith Nectar!

His eyes contracted, ‘Faith?’

Jacob immediately focused, and the Life Bane Wheel rotated faster.

The next moment, the incoming stream was divided into countless smaller strands, and Jacob could now clearly see an almost invisible substance intertwined with the Undead within the sacrificial vitalities.

It wasn’t energy in the conventional sense nor life force or soul force, and it didn’t even behave like a law. Yet it existed, and somehow was connected to countless distant beings. Each thread seemed to originate from an undead creature somewhere within the Undead Skyfall Canyons.

Some of these threads were faint, some were thick, and some were almost extinguished. Others were so dense that they resembled golden-black rivers.

But all of them eventually converged toward one point…the God of Hollow Undead!

Jacob’s eyes narrowed with a hint of realization, ‘Is that what faith looks like…?’

He had vaguely studied the Godly Faith Nectar, and also witnessed the Undead Skyfall’s power descend through the Undead Lich King. However, those experiences had only shown him the result, but this was the first time Jacob had directly observed the source.

His thoughts rapidly connected, ‘Godly Faith Nectar isn’t simply a special form of energy or a believer’s devotion towards a God.’

His eyes became increasingly profound, ‘It’s the condensed product of these connections. Faith isn’t merely worship, but it’s acknowledgment, belief, dependence, fear, and reverence of countless beings.

‘In this case, it’s the undead beings acknowledging the authority of the same supreme entity, and those absolute beliefs created an invisible connection. And over countless years, those connections accumulated into something tangible.

‘The power of Faith and maybe even the…Godly Faith Nectar!’

Jacob’s gaze became fascinated the moment this revelation dawned on him, ‘Had I stumbled upon the foundation of divine faith?’

This came as a huge surprise for Jacob, as he wasn’t expecting to comprehend something like the laws behind the power of Faith, especially with his current rank.

He had always regarded Godly Faith Nectar as an extremely mysterious resource. Even after obtaining it, he had never completely understood its full formation process.

Now he finally had another perspective: It wasn’t merely because the nectar contained enormous energy of faith. It represented the condensed essence of countless beings placing their faith in a single existence.

The more beings that believed, the deeper the connection, and the stronger the accumulation of Faith. Thus, the more terrifying that accumulation became, the stronger the Faith God.

Jacob’s eyes slowly shifted toward the invisible threads.

‘Undead Skyfall has existed for countless ages.’ His expression became strange. ‘And despite being sealed, he can still accumulate faith. So, the question is how much faith has this guy accumulated?’

The thought alone was frightening, yet what interested Jacob wasn’t the quantity at that moment, but it was the structure he had stumbled upon.

His Life Bane Wheel had already demonstrated an extraordinary characteristic. It could imitate, separate, refine, and assimilate different forms of power.

Like Life Devour represented vitality, Life Injection represented preservation and conversion, and Spectral Despair represented negative life force and soul purification. The three aspects complemented one another.

‘If Life Devour can steal vitality…’ Jacob suddenly wondered as his gaze fell upon the invisible faith threads, ‘Why can’t it steal faith?’

Jacob’s eyes flickered coldly as the idea was absurd and downright ridiculous, since faith was fundamentally different from vitality. A living being possessed vitality naturally, but faith belonged to a relationship between beings. It wasn’t something that could simply be ripped out of someone’s body.

At least, that was what Jacob had always assumed, but the Life Bane Wheel had already begun touching it.

Jacob watched as a tiny strand of faith became caught within the rotating wheel, and it didn’t disappear or resist, but simply pulled along with the sacrificial energy.

Jacob’s eyes contorted slightly, ‘It really can be separated?!’

His mind immediately began calculating, ‘If the Life Bane Wheel could distinguish faith from vitality…then perhaps it could also extract faith. If it could extract faith…could it condense it? And if it could condense it…could it produce Godly Faith Nectar or something comparable to it?!’

Jacob’s skeletal fingers slowly curled, ‘This is an absurd idea.’

For the first time in a long while, genuine excitement appeared in his eyes as he had never attempted anything like this, for he had spent countless years researching blood vitality, then soul vitality, and ten negative life force.

He had created Life Devour, Life Injection, and Spectral Despair. He had even used the Life Bane Wheel to assimilate portions of laws and other unique powers.

But faith? Never!

The main reason was that he had never come in contact with such a pure cluster of unsophisticated faith energy before, but he had; he wasn’t going to miss this opportunity!