Lord of Annihilation

With Olivia fully healed and rested, the duo moved on to the Seventh Labor with nineteen hours and thirty-nine minutes on the clock. 

The challenge of the Seventh Labor was to capture and tame the Cretan Bull, a creature known for its incredible brute strength and irascible temper that made it immune to mental-type and illusion-type abilities under Stage 4.

Standing at a massive ten meters in height and almost thirty meters in length, the figure of Olivia standing before this hill-like beast was quite a sight to see.

Traditionally, the Seventh Labor was completed using brute strength. The participant would step down into the volcanic crater within which the bull resided. Upon meeting its sight, the participant would scream at the top of their lungs, challenging the Cretan Bull to a contest of strength. 

If the participant was to win the contest of strength, the bull would acknowledge their strength and would be willing to be tamed. On the contrary, if the participant were to lose, then the Labor was deemed unclearable. 

Reasoning with the Cretan Bull was not possible as the creature was known to be one of the most stubborn and irascible beings in existence. 

Killing it, was obviously out of the question as that would be considered as failing the Labor.

When faced with this disadvantageous trail, Olivia took a single look at the large hill-like creature, turned to look at Lucius, and asked, "Are you kidding me?" 

In reply, Lucius gave his characteristic answer; a blank face. 

Calming down, Olivia took a dozen or so minutes to recall her anatomy classes with Lucius. She vaguely remembered learning about the Cretan Bull, or at the very least, about its gene pool. 

She needed to find another way to clear this trial as her greatest strength, which she recently discovered (or rediscovered) to be her soul's innate skills, was ineffective against this creature. 

Physical strength? Let's not even go there.

After wasting a few dozen minutes of precious time in searching her memories and scouting the areas of the Seventh Labor, Olivia finally stumbled upon a method that would allow her to tame this creature.

It was a simple method that only required a single object. This object wasn't something exotic or unobtainable. Olivia already had the object that would allow her to complete the Labor with an almost definite success rate.

However, just thinking about this method caused Olivia to be filled with significant repulsion and disgust.

This was because the object required to utilize this method was herself.

Or to be precise, it was her body.

The Cretan Bull was a Grade 4 creature with many strengths and few weaknesses. One glaring weakness was its abnormal fetish for humanoid-like women.

The Cretan Bull species had an abnormal desire to mate with humanoid-like females. This sexual desire was so strong that sometimes the creature would lose all of its sense of rationality and go into heat, losing its aforementioned immunity to mental and illusion-type skills.

Lacking both the physical strength to challenge the bull and the soul power stage to overcome the bull's immunity, Olivia saw no other hope in completing this trial other than employing this method.

Even so, as mentioned before, just the notion of exposing her bare body to someone other than Lucius, not to mention to a mere beast, filled her with incomparable fury, disgust, and repulsion.

Simply put, Olivia absolutely loathed the idea of employing this method, so much so that she would rather kill herself than complete this trial.

However, one look at Lucius' indifferent but stern look completely silenced all her conflicts. She did not want to shatter the expectations that he had for her, and more importantly, did not want to disappoint him.

Olivia, never ever wanted Lucius to show her that strong sense of disappointment that he displayed in Deatov. During that hopeless war, when Lucius arrived at the ninth hour and called them disappointing for their lacking ability, Olivia had felt a strong sense of alienation and abandonment.

It was a feeling that she never wanted to experience ever again. 

As such, swallowing her revulsion, Olivia walked down the slope and into the crater. Her pace was unusually slow and her face was pallid. Her entire body faintly quivered and a variety of unwilling expressions flashed across her face.

Thorn, who shared its mistress' feelings understood her plight and let out low-pitched cries as it turned back and faced Lucius, who was silently following behind them. The latter, however, remained expressionless and unmoved.

The party gradually approached the Cretan Bull, whose mountain-like body stood frozen as its eyes locked onto Olivia's figure. Its pit-like nostrils flared as its rate of breathing visibly increased since the party's descent.

Walking until they were only five or so meters away from the creature, Olivia's footsteps came to a pause and the others followed. 

Standing before the Cretan Bull, Olivia, with her pale face staring at the ground, bit hard on her lips to the point of bleeding. Raising her trembling hands, she placed them on the buckles tying down her outer armor.

Just as she had removed two of the buckles, she heard the sound of a tongue clicking.

"Tch."

The next thing she saw was the dark figure of Lucius' flying past her and crashing against the head of that mountainous beast. 

His slender, almost dainty right hand smashed against its head with such furious force that its skull deformed and half of its face was obliterated beyond recognition. 

The power of a Peak-Level Stage 3 Being with 99% completion on his Domain and one step into the Fourth Stage was not something that could be trifled with!

Landing coolly before that mountainous beast could crash on the ground Lucius turned back to face the dumbstruck Olivia and Thorn and spoke.

"No matter how strong or impossible to defeat your opponent is, never put down your pride before him. The dignity of a powerhouse is never to be sullied."

"This stands doubly true for a student taught by Ka'lor'ah and I."

Narrowing his eyes, Lucius sharply questioned, "Understood?"

Olivia, and even Thorn, dumbly nodded their heads.

Satisfied, Lucius removed the twelve-edged crystal and teleported the three of them into the next Labor. 

The body of the Cretan Bull lied coldly still with half of its head destroyed, in the middle of the volcanic crater.

----------

The Labors Eight through Eleven weren't a measure of raw power but trails that focused on the participants' intelligence, wisdom, creativity, and ability to change and adapt. 

Of course, some degree of battle prowess was still required but it wasn't anything that a participant who has overcome both the Nine-Headed Hydra and a swarm of Metal Vultures couldn't overcome.

Olivia breezed through these stages relying solely on her skills and with no input from Lucius. She was also uncharacteristically silent and evasive of Lucius, even to the point of consciously avoiding him.

Lucius noticed her strange behavior but did not pay much mind to it. 

Outwardly he appeared as expressionless and aloof as always, but hidden deep within his eyes were an odd mixture of confusion and agitation. Lucius, himself, did not understand why this was the case but did not like this feeling. He wanted to be rid of it but couldn't figure out how.

As such, he did what he did best in such cases and forcibly suppressed it before burying it deep within his subconscious. 

Having suppressed these strange feelings, he silently watched as Olivia underwent the trials and swiftly grew by overcoming difficult challenges and soaking in the new experiences. 

He silently watched as Olivia continued to refine her skills and abilities at a pace that rivaled his own, and closed in on that final step which was infinitely close to the next stage.

He silently watched and admired her brilliance, wit, creativity, and innovation; as she stole the horses from a bloodthirsty tyrant, cheated the Queen Hippolyte of her precious belt, negotiated the exchange of cattle from the Three-Bodied Giant Geryon, and exchanged the three golden apples from the Nymphs for their freedom.

While he did not show it, Lucius was utterly fascinated by her unique and creative methods of completing these trials, while he, like most others, resorted to brute power and violence.

One could say that Olivia's real charm lay not in her appearance or behavior, but in her intelligence and dedication to a certain task.

Lucius, who was intently watching her all by himself for the first time, finally noticed this part of hers.

----------

Within the Rest Space in between the Twelve Labors.

Olivia lied resting on the ground with one of her hands serving as a pillow while the other covered the upper half of her face. Her pitch-black hair lay long and scattered, directly contrasting with the spotlessly white floors of this area.

Looking from afar, Olivia increasingly resembled a heavenly angel that remained untainted by the mortal world.

"How much time do we have left?" she asked.

"One hour and one minute," Lucius mechanically answered.

He sat some distance away from her with his eyes closed and his body leaned against a white pillar.

"One hour and one more Labor left, huh?" 

She then raised her voice and asked.

"Say, why do I feel strangely heavy? It's like my body is being chained by something and I'm being weighed down by it."