Cursed Immortality

With the information Jacob got from the Gluttony Mask, he noticed one thing; it was called a Soul Artifact. Although he didn't know what a Soul Artifact was, he was sure that it was deeply interconnected to the soul, which was quite obvious by its name.

Jacob still took a mantle note to inquire about it from Immortika once he can summon it again. For now, he was more curious about testing the Gluttony Mask's abilities.

'Well, I don't have any corpses from the surface, nor do I have much variety… and I don't know if the Gluttony Mask will directly evolve into a unique rank treasure if I directly feed it a unique rank corpse since there is no in-depth information about these two abilities. Let's try…'

Jacob then took out a dry siren corpse he found in the Ocean Oracle space ring. The next moment, he touched the corpse and thought, 'Gluttony Shapeshift; Gluttony!'

The moment he thought about activating the Gluttony Shapeshift function's first aspect, the Gluttony, an astonishing scene took place. From Jacob's hand that was touching the corpse, a black hole suddenly appeared in the middle of his palm and instantly sucked the entire corpse in!

Jacob was startled for a moment, but he didn't lose his focus, and the next moment, he felt the gluttony mask on his face release a cold sensation that lasted for about ten seconds.

Once it was gone, Jacob tried using the Shapeshift aspect of the Gluttony Shapeshift function, but this time, nothing happened. A faint frown appeared on his face.

'Just as I thought, the 'entire corpse' means it shouldn't have its vitality missing. This also means the puppets that Autarch personally devours would have the same reaction. Pity; I had already devoured other magic puppets.

'Still, I should check once I find a puppet for Autarch to devour. Otherwise, it should work on the corpse I killed without removing its vitality.

'Moreover, the mask's rank didn't increase either, and it's still at the basic epic rank. So, I can be sure that it also required a complete corpse to raise its rank.

'However, I don't feel any kind of mantle instability from the mask yet. It might be because it's too weak right now; I need to do more experiments, especially with the three steps of legend corpses; only then would I truly know this mask's effect on my mind…'

Jacob wasn't too worried since he would be able to put his theories to the test very soon once he arrived in the Unique Plains. Now that he had already put on the Gluttony Mask, he wouldn't be at ease until he knew its limits.

But one thing Jacob still didn't understand was why the Witch Queen left this mask behind. After all, despite its flaws, the benefits were simply too great, and that's what made Jacob somewhat apprehensive about it.

Despite that, he knew he needed this mask now more than ever because his transformation happened as he was competing in the final stage of the first phase. So, to keep himself and his secret hidden, he had to take this risk!

---

At this moment, on the floating island, the Ice Fiend Locust Queen's eye suddenly shimmered with dense killing as her gigantic body stirred the caldera of volcanic ice, and millions of Ice Fiend Locusts became restless, mirroring their queen's rageful mood.

"The thief finally left his molehill!" She mumbled in her eerie metallic voice before she issued an absolute command, "Steer the island towards the thief! I want to see how he can escape this time. Taking my things is not easy!"

The next moment, the floating island suddenly trembled before it started to drift towards Jacob. It looked just like a huge cloud of mist, but whoever came in its way would not be able to live to tell the tale!

This was just the start of another calamity brought by the Faceless Ancient upon the entirety of Unique Plains!

---

Somewhere far, far away from the Lesser Galaxy of Taurus was a beautiful palace on top of a mountain peak.

At this moment, within this palace, sitting on a massive throne, was an imposing woman wearing nothing but black. She was as beautiful as a fairy, but her eyes were exempt from any warmth as she was impassively looking at the kneeling figure of a humanoid beast with fox ears and two tails.

"Your Imperial Majesty, the Legendary Key has been acquired by your loyal subjects from the plain trials, and they are on their way with it as we speak!" The man stated with a hint of ecstasy; he was clearly very excited about acquiring the Legendary Key!

The woman's eyes shimmered when she heard it, and she nodded in acknowledgment, "Excellent. Prepare approximate rewards for their service. You may go now and make further arrangements for the opening of the path of legend. Bring the key to me once it arrives."

"This subject won't disappoint you." The man quickly nodded, but a hint of hesitation appeared in his eyes as if he wanted to say something before leaving.

The woman noticed it and said coolly, "Is there something you want to add? Speak without restrain."

The man pulled a difficult expression before he finally decided to speak, "I seek your majesty's forgiveness for what I'm about to say. I just received a message stating that the delegates of the three factions want to negotiate with Her Majesty to enter the path of legend!"

The woman's eyes turned deadly cold as she sneered, "They just wouldn't learn, do they? First, they tried to suppress me and assassinate me but failed and got beaten back miserably. Then, they even formed an alliance among themselves to resist me, and again, when they were beaten like dead dogs, they ran away.

"Only after that did they acknowledge my rule, and I even spared them since I didn't want to commit genocide, and now that they had the gal to negotiate with me when they found I got the legendary key? Do those shameless dogs think I'm so gullible?!"

The man trembled when he sensed the rage behind the woman's words. He took a deep breath and bowed his head. "I understand! I'll send your reply right away." He quickly got up and started to head towards the exit.

The woman's eyes flashed with a peculiar hint as she watched the man leave before she suddenly said, "Tell them, if they want to enter the Path of Legend with me, I want complete command over their troops. Before this could happen, I want all the secret information they are hiding about the Path of Legend as well as all the information they had on the middle galaxies!"

The man suddenly stopped before he looked back at the woman with shock. He was mesmerized by her beauty, but he quickly snapped out of it when he saw her eyes become deadly sharp, and he quickly averted his eyes since he knew that woman would kill anyone who looked at her like this.

He quickly said before leaving, "I will send your decree right away!"

The moment the man left, the woman was alone, and at this moment, she couldn't help but sigh, "About god-damn time, I got that troublesome key!" She completely lost her dignified air and appeared like a frustrated woman who had overworked herself.

However, right at this moment, a deep voice suddenly rang in her head, "Legatee, I just sense my correlate Universal Godly Artifact being activated by someone in one of the lesser galaxies!"