The Invincible Full-Moon System

Chapter 2018: First Blood Claim Ritual (1)

It didn’t sit well with Rex.

Seeing Mayar’s absolute disregard for Aylith, his own mother who had given him existence and raised him to become who he was right now, prickled something ugly—inside of him. Not that he felt pity for Aylith and her situation.

Not in the slightest.

He was not fool enough to assume Aylith had been a kind and loving mother in the ancient past.

Perhaps she had been cold, strict, and ruthless.

Perhaps the Lunirich Gods had actual reasons for their bitterness towards their own mother.

Perhaps the way they treated her was a wound Aylith had earned.

But regardless, this dynamic gnawed at him to the bone. Far more than he had anticipated.

For Rex, it didn’t matter what she had done; it didn’t matter what failures stained her hands; Aylith was still their mother. Her presence alone should’ve stirred something in Mayar. A flicker of recognition. A spark of hatred. Or maybe even sadness. Anything.

Hatred, Rex could’ve understood.

Hatred was an acknowledgment.

Even the act of killing one’s own parent could carry weight.

After all, Lilliana and Davina had killed Duke Lorcan, their own father, with their own two hands due to the fact that he refused to change, refused to be better, and Rex didn’t have a problem with that. That had been brutal, but it had meant something.

It had meant real.

On the contrary, the way Mayar treated Aylith was erasure. It was obscene.

Mayar’s eyes never landed on Aylith as though she were a ghost too faded to see.

As if she did not exist at all.

And for that, Rex’s mood soured until the air around him grew cold.

A parent was worth more than nothing. Always.

Rex’s thoughts naturally drifted unbidden to Mrs. Greene—the woman who had raised him, filled with flaws but always had his back even in the darkness of his youth. And to Nabila, his biological mother, whose blood runs through his veins, whose kindness still persists in his heart through memories.

He would do anything, give anything, burn anything to have them back for even a single moment.

To hear their voices. To feel their presence.

And here was Mayar, blessed with a mother who was a Goddess and immortal, who still mentioned his name with love, and he treated her like air. The sight of it filled Rex’s chest with an icy-cold, simmering disgust that he did not bother to hide.

Of course, he knew that there was no limit in the game to reach invincibility.

Having a Goddess as a mother complicated a lot of things.

But this was still unwarranted.

Rex reverted slowly, deliberately, the werewolf form receding as bone and fur shifted back into human shape. His crimson eyes, still burning with that cold fury, fixed on Mayar. ”Didn’t you hear the deal that I made with your mother? This is the time to change your fate, Lunirich God. Don’t cling to a sinking boat.”

Almost instantly, Aylith snapped out of her sorrow.

Being treated as nothing by Mayar broke her heart, but it was not the time for sorrow.

She had made a deal with Rex that she was going to try to convince the Lunirich Gods to surrender to him, in exchange for being spared. In a way, in case Rex was really serious about killing the Lunirich Gods, her children’s lives depended on her.

So, she pressed the heartbreak down and focused on the moment.

”Mayar. My son. I know you’re now a God, and I’m happy for you, but you haven’t gone through the tribulations needed to become a God.” Aylith said. Her voice was no longer soft, but firm—stern. ”You are a God in power, but you are incomplete as a true God. Listen to me this once.”

”...”

”I won’t mind if you won’t listen to me ever again—or even acknowledge me. But this once. Listen to me.”

Instead of heeding Aylith’s words, Mayar addressed Rex.

”Sinking boat? Bold of you to speak of us that way.” A cold chuckle escaped his mouth as the mark on his chest began to glow, gradually getting brighter with every heartbeat. ”You, Royal Black Prince, have not seen even a fraction of our might, and already you speak as if you won? We Lunirich Gods will not fall to you. And for me, what you said is nothing more than an insult.

”Do you think I’d betray my siblings?”

”Ironic for you to say that when you can’t even acknowledge your own mother.” Rex leaped down from the crescent moon artifact and stretched his limbs. He cast Moonlight Corruption, infusing Davina and Lilliana with moonlight to help them recover.

A gush of silvery light shot from Rex’s hand, splitting cleanly in two before it seeped into Davina and Lilliana. The energy flooded through them rapidly, threading into their veins like liquid moonlight.

And almost immediately, the crushing pressure of Mayar’s presence began to ease.

Just slightly—they still couldn’t stand. The pain still raked through their organs, and the weight of godly might still pressed down on their souls. But it was enough. Now they could endure it better.

They could even raise their gazes, though neither dared to look Mayar in the eyes.

Regardless of their condition, Mayar was still a God.

Rex moved past them without a word.

He walked to Aylith and, with surprising gentleness, patted her back.

”Are you done convincing him?” Rex asked with a raised brow—he was waiting for her to finish. And though he was talking with Aylith, his eyes were fixed on Mayar, and there was absolute confidence in them. ”Because if you are, then I’ll make my move.”

”No!” Aylith shook her head. ”I’m not done! You can’t do anything to him yet!”

”No? Okay. Continue, then.”

”Give me time. I’m sure I can get through to him somehow.”

Seeing how nonchalant Rex was regarding this situation, Mayar’s brows furrowed into a frown.

At this moment, he was within attacking range.

He could kill Rex alongside Davina and Lilliana on a whim—and he was certain that Rex knew it. And yet, for some strange and unsettling reason, there was urgency in Rex’s movements. No tension. Nothing about him suggested he understood the danger he was in.

’Did he really anticipate me coming?’ Mayar thought inside.

Just earlier, Rex insinuated that he was easy to find simply because he wanted to be found.

And that implies that he was ready for the Lunirich Gods to attack at any moment.

It should be impossible for him to resist the power of a God—and yet the confidence that he has seemed to be born out of something. Mayar looked around and expanded his celestial senses across the whole Great Pale Court.

Even though the Sovereign Realm was already a mess, he was still familiar with it.

He had spent most of his life in this realm, so he knew every corner.

But he couldn’t find anything. Nothing at all.

’Where did he have this confidence from?’ Mayar thought with increasing worry.

Knowing that Rex had been a thorn in Kaiser’s side, he would never underestimate Rex. It would be a foolish thing to do. Despite being a lesser being, merely a Demigod, Rex was nothing ordinary. Not even the slightest.

Rex could do what no ordinary mortal could do.

Contending with a God is already impossible enough, but he could do more than that.

Underestimating Rex would only lead to his downfall more quickly.

Rex smiled inwardly.

He knew what was going on inside Mayar’s head.

He knew why Mayar didn’t attack him instantly.

For being able to contend with Kaiser and even now going on the offensive had earned him respect.

No God, especially the Lunirich Gods, would underestimate him anymore.

And he was going to use that respect to his advantage.

Just then, without warning, Rex took Aylith’s hand—and dragged a claw across her palm. Blood welled, dark and glistening. Aylith flinched, confusion flickering across her wounded face, but Rex had already turned away, walking toward the side.

Then she saw Mayar move.

Instinct overrode confusion. She stepped in front of Rex, spreading her arms, placing her own frail body between the Lunirich God and the dangerous mortal. It should be a futile gesture—a weakened Goddess shielding a stranger from her own son—but she did it without hesitation.

”Don’t do it!” She exclaimed. ”If you attack him, then you’ll have to go through me first.”

Of course, going through her was easy for Mayar.

But Aylith knew that he wouldn’t kill her.

It was the conclusion that the Lunirich Gods had decided that they would leave her to die a grand death.

And that grand death was being left alone in a dying Sovereign Realm to contemplate her wrongs.

Killing her right now would be mercy.

Even now, Mayar’s eyes never wavered. He did not look at her.

Even with her body directly in his eyesight, his gaze slid past her like light over still water. Indifferent.

”Can’t you listen to me? There was a reason why a God should not meddle too much with th—”

Aylith kept pleading with Mayar, her voice urgent and trembling as she tried to quell his killing intent toward Rex. She wanted him to see reason. Perhaps, if she showed him how earnestly she was trying to help, he would remember something—anything good—from the bond they once shared.

Her words tumbled from her lips, fragile and breaking.

Yet Mayar’s expression never changed.

Behind her, Rex began something.

He walked a slow, deliberate path, cutting his own wrist with his claws—letting blood fall in a steady rhythm against the moonlit ground. He moved without hurry, leaving a dark trail behind him, marking the stone with blood and intention.

Once he found the spot, he stopped.

And then, he let Aylith’s blood drip from his palm—then poured his own on top of it. The two mingled, spreading in a dark pool, and he dipped his foot into it, dragging lines outward. A symbol began to take shape—a circle drawn in blood and will.

Yes.

He squatted, reaching into his inventory.

A vial emerged, glowing with a soft, rainbow light.

He uncapped it and placed it at the center of the circle. Then he pressed his palm down, the Silverstar Mark flaring against the glass, and with a pulse of energy, the mark was branded into the blood-soaked ground.

The circle flared to life, glowing with that same impossible rainbow light.

It was silent, but certainly hummed with power.

Seeing this, Mayar had had enough.

He moved—a blur of divine fury—directly toward Rex, heedless of Aylith still standing in his path.

No matter what Rex had, his patience had run dry, and now there was only the killing.

Swoosh—!

Staring at Rex would do him no good.

Mayar had learned that quickly—the Royal Black Prince’s eyes offered no answers—only a challenge that grated against the God’s patience like sand against stone. And yet, Rex was doing something. That much was clear.

The blood circle, the glowing vial, the deliberate marking of symbols.

It must be something to help him, so Mayar decided to strike.

He would test it. A probe. A single, devastating strike to see what this mortal had in store.

Like a blur, he moved. The world blurred. Speed that bent time itself, speed that made the air scream and the light stutter, and his claws arced toward Rex’s throat—with the force of a falling moon. It should have been instant.

It should have been over.

But the claws stopped mid-track.

Mayar’s frown came slowly, a crack in the mask of divine indifference. He tried to pull his arm back. It wouldn’t move. He tried again, harder. Nothing. Something invisible had wrapped around his body—coiled around his wrist, his forearm, his shoulder—and it held him with a strength that should have been impossible.

The air around him felt wrong. It felt heavy and alive.

He blinked, and his celestial senses opened wide.

And then he saw it.

Mayar’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time, a flicker of something cold and unfamiliar stirred behind them. This power was certainly not Rex’s. It didn’t belong to a mortal. It was not even divine in the way he understood divinity.

For the first time in eons, the Lunirich God felt something familiar.

A faint, unwelcome whisper of something he had almost forgotten.

Fear.