Eternal Master: Path to Godlike Status-Chapter 22: Cost of Immortality Part 1

In the end, he only learned superficial things—most of the books chronicled fate, much like the scriptures on Earth, but far more fantastical.

’As expected of a town church. It barely has anything useful.’

Rain closed the final volume. The thud of leather on wood sounded like a gavel.

He didn’t linger. He didn’t hide the books. If they found them out of place, they would blame a forgetful priest.

With that settled, he decided to head toward the basement, where Elisa and Eira were likely being held.

Rain descended the stone steps. The air grew thick with the smell of stagnant water.

A few meters away, a lone guard sat on a stool, draped in the heavy, slate-gray robes.

The guard was mid-yawn when Rain reached him. A hand clamped around his neck, and he was out cold in an instant.

Stripping the heavy, gray robes took mere seconds. Coarse fabric, reeking of sweat, served its purpose well enough.

Once pulled over his own clothes, the garment transformed him; the deep hood swallowed his features, leaving only a shadow where a face should be.

Row after row, the cells revealed their contents. Beyond the first four, the iron bars caged more than just shadows. Thin, skeletal hands gripped the rusted slats.

None spoke. They were too broken for words.

Rain stopped at the fifth cell.

Elisa and Eira huddled on a mat of moldy straw, their bodies marked with fresh wounds—proof of the torture they endured while he was busy reading.

He felt no real guilt. A little pain didn’t matter much to him, as long as they remained alive and useful.

"We... we already told you—we don’t know him." Elisa’s eyes narrowed in anger as she looked up, unable to recognize him.

Rain revealed his face. "Don’t worry. I came here to rescue you."

Then, from beneath his feet, a white light shot up from the ground, blinding him.

When it faded, he realized he couldn’t move. The chains locking him in were several times stronger than the last ones.

It practically burned and seared his skin, binding him so tightly that only his bones could stop it.

Soon, a series of footsteps echoed through the hall as Alfonso and Alexandra descended, their expressions proud.

"Stop resisting," she sneered. "The holy chains in this place are connected to the entire structure. You won’t escape them like last time."

Rain was momentarily at a loss for words. He lived so long without a real challenge that an obvious trap caught him off guard.

Yet, instead of anger, he felt a strange happiness. He was outsmarted by people he once considered incapable.

"So, what now?" he asked.

Alexandra clicked her tongue in annoyance. Even in this state, he showed no fear and no hint of pain, treating their weapons as little more than a minor inconvenience.

Worse, he even looked like he was enjoying it far too much.

"Now we will seal you."

Dozens of priests began chanting, and the chains multiplied, wrapping his body until he was covered from head to toe.

He was confident he could break free at any time, but he was curious about the plan they were cooking up for him.

Others might think he was in a pathetic state right now.

But he was an immortal—someone who had endured a countless years of agonizingly slow existence and endless boredom.

Judging him by normal human standards would be meaningless.

More holy power began to purify his body.

A normal undead would have perished by now, but he retained his consciousness, feeling his body being moved—he assumed into a coffin.

’Go on. Entertain me a little more.’

Time ceased to be a sequence of minutes. It became a rhythm of vibrations.

First day was the grind. Iron wheels on cobblestone. The jarring shock of every pothole traveled through the wood, through the holy chains, and directly into his bones.

Then came the silence. The carriage stopped. He felt the tilt of the coffin as men—many men, judging by the heavy breathing—carried his prison.

Thump. The coffin hit a marble floor. The vibration hummed through his spine like a tuning fork.

Just as boredom set in and he prepared to break free, the coffin opened—revealing a vast room before him, one that resembled a massive cathedral.

Light streamed through the oversized, colorful windows, each pane depicting religious scenes.

On the platform stood a beautiful maiden with blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed in a priest’s robe trimmed with gold.

Crawling out of the coffin, his muscles regenerated in real time, causing the spectators around him to gasp in horror.

"High Priest Alicia, suppress him immediately before he fully heals!" Alexandra warned, fully aware they had only caught him off guard through his own carelessness.

"There’s no need for that, my child. He may think himself powerful, but to me, he is just a lost child—believing he has reached heaven when he hasn’t even touched the sky."

Rain almost laughed at how arrogant she sounded. He lived through eons, and now a woman who didn’t even look twenty-five was talking down to him.

But then again, this world was full of unexplainable things—she could easily be thousands of years old.

Still, he doubted she was older than him; there was no trace of boredom in her eyes.

’So, this was what it felt like to be humbled.’ he mused to himself.

"I see. You make a good point. So how about you show me just how high this sky really is?" Rain suggested.

Alicia didn’t move. She didn’t reach for a weapon. She simply looked at him with the serene, infuriating pity of an adult watching a toddler throw a tantrum.

"Immortality hasn’t made you wise. It has made you numb. You have walked through fire for so long that you forgot it can burn. You have walked through oceans until you forgot you could drown."

She raised her hand. "I’ll grant you mercy—by letting you wake up from your delusions."

Rain’s grin widened, his blood thrumming with excitement. His skin deepened to a fiery red as his body temperature soared.

This time, he didn’t dare hold back.

20%... 30%... 70%...100%

The floor beneath him cracked. His once-normal eyes turned black, muscles bulging as veins tore and healed in a relentless cycle—each rupture only fueling the next, over and over.

Alexandra watched, eyes filled with frustration. She realized just how much he held back during their fight.

"High Priest—" She turned to speak, but stopped midway, caught off guard by the smile on Alicia’s face.

She wasn’t afraid; she was anticipating the transformation.