"I will start the merging..."

And so began the grotesque screams of Zier, reaching the far ends of the City of Refuge.

Ozul could’ve put up a shield with the Purity to block off the sound, but he didn’t risk dividing his attention.

Those who recognized the voice could only wonder anxiously what made an Empyrean scream till his throat hurt.

The other five promptly reached the house, guarding them in case someone unkind decided to make an appearance. The process was evidently delicate and serious, judging from the screams of Zier, who had poisoned himself countless times.

Inside the house, the Purity gradually traced along all the spiritual veins, mixing with the walls drop by drop.

Each time the Purity was injected into the walls, a pain unlike anything before coursed through Zier’s entire body, ending with something akin to needles pressing firmly against the back of his head.

Having mixed the Purity with the walls of the veins once, Ozul breathed a sigh.

But just when Zier thought it was over, his hopes were crushed by his next words,

"Same thing repeated a few more times, and I think it should be enough."

"... Can we... take a break...?" Zier breathed heavily, his voice almost cracked due to the sheer amount of pain he had to bear.

"No, it must be done now, or it will be more painful later."

With that, the screams continued.

Outside, the other five didn’t say anything. Their centuries of experience didn’t let it show on their faces, but it unnerved them.

If Zier was howling like a mad dog, so could they.

Whatever was happening, they hoped it was actually worth it in the end.

...

An hour passed when Ozul walked out, exhaling a deep breath he didn’t know he was holding.

The other five grew closer, concern reflecting behind their cold and calculating eyes.

A few seconds passed when Zier didn’t walk out, so Raven couldn’t help but muster up some courage to ask, "Is he... alive?"

Ozul gave her a deadpanned face.

"He is alive. Keep watch over him while he recovers." Having said that, he walked back inside, moving to a different room.

If he were to simply create a thick layer of the Purity over the spiritual veins, it would have required him to maintain a small concentration for all of them separately. However, it would have been almost painless.

Such a setup was inconvenient and ineffective, as the reinforcement would be lost once he couldn’t sense the traces of Purity in their body.

As such, the more permanent solution was to slowly integrate the Purity to perfectly mix within.

Other than reinforcing the spiritual veins, however, Ozul made no other alterations in Zier’s body.

The rest of him remained untouched while his spiritual pathways were now a mix of black with their original color.

Although he had considered replacing the veins entirely with vessels created from the Purity, it wouldn’t have been self-sustaining and might have caused unbearable pain.

"I hope that’s all there was to it..." he muttered to himself as he closed his eyes.

When he had probed through Jidu’s body, the only thing that really stood out from the rest of the Empyreans was those spiritual veins.

From what he could glimpse, it almost seemed like Jidu didn’t have to guide his Spiritual Essence at all. The ’flow’ happened on its own.

Normally, no cultivator would allow their spiritual gates to spew out streaks of the Essence on their own. It wouldn’t just damage their pathways, but may even cause them to lose their cultivation entirely!

This was also the reason that, despite having more than enough Essence, the cultivators couldn’t simply go berserk. They carefully guided it from one gate to another, making sure that the veins only served as the edges of a river and not like a dam sustaining full force of the flow—they were too fragile to bear that burden.

In the hidden corners, there were subtle nuances that separated Jidu from the other Empyreans, but such differences were common and were the source of individuality among the various cultivators.

With nothing else standing out, the spiritual veins were his best bet. Jidu’s spiritual veins were thicker and more sturdy than anything else he had seen. It was almost as if someone had made the same changes to him, albeit with a different substance than the Purity.

On the off-chance that it didn’t work, he would have to capture another Heavenly Virtue for comparison.

But with the way things were moving, it wouldn’t be easy to subdue one again. Since one of them died so randomly, the others would also be more cautious.

...

Another day passed before Zier woke up from his meditation.

When Ozul sensed his movements, he also woke up, appearing before him like a mirage.

He noticed the look of amazement on his face, knowing at least there was some improvement from before.

"Let your Spiritual Essence flow on its own. Focus on only cutting off the supply when you want to," Ozul explained after observing that Zier was still hesitating.

The new spiritual veins were sturdy, but he wasn’t sure just how much he could trust them. If something went wrong, he wouldn’t easily recover from that.

After a push from Ozul, he slowly began to let go.

His hold slowly loosened till the Spiritual Essence was flowing entirely on its own.

However, that wasn’t everything. Once he realized that the walls of his spiritual veins remained unmoving despite the pressure, he began to release more essence.

And that was it. As the barricade disappeared, a river of essence thrust forth like anything Zier could manage before!

Ozul observed calmly as Zier stood brimming with a dense energy.

"A success..." He muttered, his nonexistent heart easing as the procedure seemed to work exactly as intended. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Just then, Zier paused, and his face twisted with unease. He immediately cut off all supply from the spiritual gates before the pain eased.

"It will take some time before the pathways get used to it..." Zier told Ozul, who was beginning to think that something had gone horribly wrong.

Nodding, Ozul slowly went back to his room.

"Stay here. Thoroughly inspect your internals, and if there is any problem, we will fix it quickly."

...

A few days later, Zier came out of the house, and to the amazement of the others standing watch outside, the power radiated from him was an edge above the rest!

Zier flashed them a smile, "I will need some more time adjusting, but with this... I can definitely stand against those Virtues!"

His confident declaration stirred something primal within their hearts.

Before them stood a being almost on par with the Heavenly Virtues, on par with the actual players of the cosmic game that was being played on the board shaped with the blood of millions of lives.

It was possible only because of Ozul. Ember couldn’t think of any other way to reinforce the spiritual veins like that.

Blaze, Raven, Vesta, Rai, and even Ember seemed eager to go next.

Unfortunately for the latter three, Ozul had already decided that the Beastkin anatomy needed special attention.

Among the Heavenly Virtues, there was no information whether any of them were Beastkin. As such, he would have to improvise on his own.

Days passed by, and first Raven and then Blaze too received the same procedure.

Blaze faced the most resistance with his spiritual veins attuned to a specific nature. Zier helped him using his Blood Arts while Ozul went back to resting, entertaining his own musings.

Finally, when it came to the three Beastkin, Ozul called in Ember first. She had the finest control over her Spiritual Essence.

"Why is it different with us?" She asked, skeptical that maybe he was showing prejudice, favoring his own companions.

Ozul sensed the suspicion, but didn’t care about it.

"Beastkin transform. During the transformation, your veins shift, stretch, and morph. If their walls become too rigid, they could cause a problem during your alteration."

He wouldn’t have wasted so many words if it weren’t paramount that she trusted him blindly lest she unknowingly resisted the change and caused a mishap.

His explanation made sense, so she didn’t ask any further.

"What do I do?"

Ozul went behind and touched her back, carefully removing excess flesh around her spiritual veins.

After that, he created a mental picture of the entire network of pathways before standing up.

"Let’s move outside. I need to observe you when you’re fully transformed."

Ozul went on to make mental images of her pathways in all conditions, even in various forms of her partial transformations.

The process took them half a day, as he had to think and find the hotspots that would do the morphing during the transformations.

Finding those hotspots was the main part; the rest of the process was almost identical to those before her.

Fortunately for Ember, Ozul observed that the parts of the veins that actually changed were far and few. Most of the time, the veins merely elongated to adjust to the growing size of the Beastkin.

The same was observed with Vesta and Rai as well.

Merely changing the nature of the Purity made it possible to accommodate that elongation without anything breaking. The morphing part was the most difficult, but seeing that these points were always near the spiritual gates, they could simply leave them be. Not reinforcing these points seemed to be their best option.

Having mapped out everything, Ozul began to work, and it took two weeks for the three of them to receive the reinforcements.

. . .

Ozul entered the room, observing all six of them lined up, sitting in lotus positions with closed eyes.

There were 6 Heavenly Virtues in the world, but now another 6 anomalies have appeared.

Ozul mused on what weird nicknames they might receive from the general public once it became known that there was yet another group on par with the great Virtues now.

While the past month was spent silently modifying their bodies, the Realm hadn’t remained silent.

The winds of the final war were blowing.

Whichever direction they took, only death and destruction hung solemnly.