Damned Healer-Chapter 543: Ninth Zenith

Meru looked Darian in the eyes, seeing a spark light up there. Before he could answer, she added seriously, "I'll be honest, I'm not sure about the final result of the technique. The theory is really solid, but when you reach the final part, I have no idea what's actually going to happen, or the full extent of it."

Darian swallowed hard. If even his Master, who was on a level way above an immortal, didn't know, the potential of this was immeasurable.

"If it's only at the end, that's fine," Darian said pragmatically. "If something goes wrong in the future, I'll already have new weapons and methods, so maybe I'll be able to deal with it."

Meru nodded. "Great, delusional people think courage and willpower are enough to solve everything. But you seem to have learned properly, always seeking more knowledge and different kinds of power. Even small things can save you in some situation."

Darian gave a faint smile. Knowledge was everything. From the moment he became a Spiritual Guardian, the knowledge from that book had made all the difference for him. It had completely shaped his worldview. Whenever he could, he studied techniques, methods, and anything new that was available, never being satisfied with what he already had.

Because of that, he had confidence that, when things turned chaotic and troublesome, he'd find some unconventional way to solve them.

"Ok, we have one year until you have to go back to your universe. This time, I won't need to train you physically, but... be prepared. I'm going to carve every detail into your soul and mind and completely change everything you've built. Ready?"

"..."

Darian saw those almost sadistic eyes fixed on him and couldn't respond or react. He only felt a chill run down his spine, a bad omen.

***

Days went by quickly, turning into months in the blink of an eye.

Darian stayed immersed inside that small stone temple. Meru only told him to stay in a meditative state while she made changes to his soul and explained everything to him in detail inside his mind.

She had to do that, because in the final moment, when Darian reached the maximum power of that technique, he would be completely on his own.

She had asked her father about the technique beforehand, but he only said that, in theory, Darian's power would multiply many times with it. But in practice, what she was doing was creating something never seen before. You could only know for sure when all the pieces came together.

It was like she had given Darian the paint and the brush, and verbally explained in detail what kind of painting she wanted. Darian would have to shape the canvas and create what she planned at the end.

After ten months, where Darian felt his soul breaking and changing in nonstop torture, the foundation was finally built.

Darian opened his eyes, feeling the four great powers inside his soul, completely different from before.

Meru spoke slowly, "You did a good job evolving the white and black rings more than once in the past. But after that, you realized it was almost impossible to go much further, right? In fact, you were right. I didn't foresee many evolutions for the rings when I created the technique. After a few of your changes, the rings reached their structural limit."

Darian nodded. After evolving his rings a few times, even devouring a lot of karma, he felt that the white ring was nowhere near evolving. As for the black ring, recently, he had conquered another galaxy and dominated hundreds of new souls with his technique, but the black ring showed the same problem.

But now...

On his two fists, the rings had changed into a completely new structure, very similar to the rings of Spiritual Guardians. And not just the rings on his fists. Meru had changed the newly acquired Heart of Gaia and also the chaos core.

"These four cores are now officially connected to your curse. We'll call them the White Core, Black Core, Chaos Core, and Gaia Core. The White and Black Cores, because of their last evolutions, are in the third realm. The other two, in the first." Meru explained seriously.

From now on, those four cores had realms that went from one to nine, just like his rings. And even better: they evolved with Merit Power, just like the rings of a Spiritual Guardian. At the same time, the amount of Merit Power needed to evolve them was just as high.

With these four cores added, Darian now had five things to evolve.

"You must first raise all of them to the seventh realm, keeping them balanced with your seven rings. After that, you must always evolve them together." Meru continued calmly.

"Your evolution speed is going to drop drastically. But that's not such a bad thing, because those three idiots prefer to wait until you reach nine rings. Your actions in this universe annoyed them, but not in a way that truly scared them. Besides, you damaged their souls; they'll want to recover, and considering how low their level is, it should take a decade or two."

Darian agreed. Their eyes were always on him, and for Darian, evolving more slowly now was in his favor. It would make those three feel safer while recovering, leaving him alone for a few years.

And his power wouldn't just rise — it would multiply many times over. When he reached nine rings and the three attacked him with everything they had, that's when they would discover the mistake they made.

"This technique was created by me and Aunt Yinou. It's called *The Eightfold Celestial Path*," Meru said calmly. "As the name says, it has eight paths. You have four, and your partner will have the other four."

She finished and nodded, with a small light floating toward Darian. It settled lightly on his soul, but wasn't absorbed by him.

"This is the other part, the one you have to give to her. There aren't many explanations... because she's not the type who cares about that. Aunt Yinou prepared everything so she can do it on her own in a very instinctive way."

Meru paused, then looked at Darian intently.

"But this is just an evolution technique, a ladder to real power. The two of you will gain a lot from this, and your basic powers will increase drastically. But... when both of you reach the nine realms in the eight cores, and when you can use the: *The Ninth Zenith*."

"The ninth core is obviously you, since you have the power of the nine rings, which comes from a Primordial Chaos Item. You're going to connect all nine powers, never united before... and that has the potential to distort reality, creating many benefits and also problems."

Darian nodded in understanding. But something left him really intrigued.

"Niara and I can share our powers. But this shared technique feels kind of impractical..."

"No need to worry about that now." Meru cut him off, clearly not wanting to explain much. "My mother gave me some hints, and I created a perfect method. When the time comes, you'll understand how it works. Your job is only to evolve all your powers and focus only on the end."

Darian could only sigh. She didn't want to say it, so he could only accept and wait.

"Well, now you understand my 'plan'. I didn't create any path you must follow like before, and you're free to act however you want. I did my job as a master, giving you only weapons and hints to fight."

Darian nodded; that was much easier. He only needed to follow his own instincts while evolving.

"Now, one last very important thing. These books have a power that lets me go a little against the rules. Thanks to the power inside them, I can interfere in your life, something that would obviously be against the rules. When you awakened, the book you always read also had that; that's why it vanished, because I used everything during your awakening to place the full curse."

"In the second book, I could become your master and tell you a few things. Now, in this third one, I could tell you other important things and pass my technique in a partially incomplete form. So, finding the other books will be essential if you want to get new high-level things in the future."

"For example, you'll have to kill that Young Leader of the Wube Family, right? Don't be stupid and recover your father's spiritual root that was placed in him; since you don't have one, because you gave yours to your partner, turn it into something of your own. With that, you'll gain an almost perfect time-space manipulation power, something you're in need of right now. After you obtain that, in the next book, I can teach you everything about time-space. In each book, you'll have a chance to increase your power and possibilities countless times more."

Darian heard that and became serious. He really hadn't considered keeping his father's spiritual root. Until now, Vanh hadn't acted directly against him, but that day would likely come. And that extra spiritual root of his came from Darius, and Darian deserved to keep that.

"That brat ascended to immortality. His extra spiritual root was also nurtured with immortal power. To you, that'll be a treasure. Think of it as having used the Wube Family to nurture something of yours for free." Meru added with a mocking tone.

Darian nodded, understanding her point. "Sounds good. But Vanh still hasn't shown himself to be someone I need to kill... honestly, I'll feel a bit bad if I have to do that. My revenge for my father and mother is already done; he has nothing to do with it."

Meru agreed, "Life is like that... well, the final decision is his."

After she spoke, her silhouette began to slowly fade away.

She sighed, then spoke with a sharp voice, "I'm always watching you. And also... why the hell are you holding back with that poor Dragoness? 'Taking it slow', what the hell is that? Are you a coward, or are you afraid of being happy or something?"

"I..." Darian was speechless. Meru really was watching everything, and that made him a bit embarrassed.

Meru huffed heavily with her energy almost completely gone.

"I won't blame you. You lived an isolated life and only had two women you were close to: your mother and your younger sister. You never even had a childhood crush or felt attracted to a girl because of the fear you had of seeing people's karma and past... that's why you only ever knew family love with the opposite gender. What you feel for Niara is something new, and it scares you a little; you feel that, if you let your instincts run free, you'll end up doing something wrong and making her angry. And for you, making someone you care about that much upset is worse than death. But..."

Meru's entire form vanished, leaving only her last words echoing in Darian's mind.

"What you feel for her is mutual. She also only thinks about taking care of you. Things don't have to be so complicated. If you're not going to enjoy every second you have with her, then why the hell are you trying so hard? Grow some balls, dumbass."

The figure vanished completely, leaving Darian standing there in silence with his own thoughts.