Chapter 69: The Season of the Minotaur (18)

The first thought that crossed Simon’s mind was that Cassandra had shifter blood.

It would have made sense, since human-shifter dalliances were unusual but not unheard of, especially in Telluria. However, the sinuous forked tail didn’t belong to any natural animal or creature Simon knew of. Another darker possibility came to mind when taking Duchar’s proclivities into account.

“You are a fiend?” Simon asked, taken aback.

“Half of one,” Cassandra replied shyly. “My mother was a demon that my father had a relationship with, after his first wife died.”

“That… Then Hector is your half-brother…” Simon didn’t know what to say. Humans and demons could reproduce together—the latter could breed with anything, being creatures of miasma rather than natural entities—but most couplings were far from consensual. At least the ‘relationship’ part implied a much healthier reason for Cassandra’s birth. “There must be a big story behind that.”

“Not quite. Father wanted to sire a half-demon child out of scientific curiosity, and mother indulged him.”

Of course. Only Duchar would think to bed a demon for the sake of experimentation. It was a small miracle that Cassandra turned out relatively well-adjusted. Still, a worrying detail came to mind…

“I do recall you mentioning you despised your mother,” Simon said.

“I did?” Cassandra replied with a frown of confusion, Simon’s heart skipping a beat when he realized she only did so in a former reign. “But yes, I do not like her. Mother gave birth to me because she wanted to understand the human feelings of love and motherhood.”

“I… I take it she did not?” Somehow, Simon struggled to imagine a creature entirely shaped out of corrupted mana to be capable of love.

“No. So she tried to strangle me one day to see if she could feel remorse instead when I was still a child.” She said that so casually they might as well have been discussing the weather. “Father had to banish her back to the Abyss after that.”

Simon winced. “I’m… I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.” Cassandra tilted her head to the side, as if considering whether her nonchalance was appropriate in the current situation. “I do not think I experience emotions like a normal person because of my origins. There are things that are obvious to others that I miss unless I pay attention, but other burdens do not weigh on my mind too much.”

“I… I see.” That explained a lot of things. “I promise I shall not share your secret with anyone.”

She bit her lower lip shyly. “You do not mind?”

“No, not at all.” Simon gently stroked her hair and horns. “I find them quite lovely, actually.”

“Thank you. I was afraid my origins might frighten or bother you.”

“Well, I kinda count as a demon because of my Class either way, so… no, it doesn’t.” He put his hands around her waist, and this time she didn’t pull back. “I like you just the way you are.”

She smiled at him, her tail coiling around his legs as their lips met once more.

* * *

That…

Whoa.

That… alright… that was something…

“Simon?” Cassandra’s voice brought him back to reality as she pulled their bedsheet up. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s…” Simon struggled to put it into words, his eyes staring at the ceiling as a fog lifted over his mind. “I’m just… recovering.”

“Was it bad?” she asked with a frown. “Personally, I enjoyed it.”

“I… I did too…” The things she did with her tail… that opened up so many possibilities… “It was… good.”

He thought the best night of his life had been with Anna, and while he shared a deeper kinship with her, tonight had been something else altogether. Balzam’s loathsome rating had been accurate for once.

And yet, as the pleasure and contentment receded into the back of Simon’s mind, a certain realization wouldn’t leave him.

This would not last.

This would not stick. There would come a time when Simon would wake up in Frightwall alone again, their relationship a mere dream the new Cassandra wouldn’t remember. Would it hurt when he saw her again then, the same way it had hurt with Anna? Or would he simply cherish the memory and move on eventually?

“I wonder how long it can last,” Simon said as he pulled her close to him, her head resting on his shoulder. “Us.”

“As long as it can, I think?” Cassandra replied simply. “I have never been courted before, so I cannot tell.”

“I hope it lasts beyond the ritual.” Both this relationship and the reign. “What would you like to do once we complete it?”

Cassandra thought about it for a moment. “I would like to stay. I like this place and the people here. I would like to meet the Muse too, once it is safe for me to do so.”

“What, really?” That took Simon aback. “Why?”

“I think she is lonely and in deep pain. She reaches out to me sometimes, and I often answer.”

“I forbade her to,” Simon replied in annoyance. “If that treacherous tree tried to lure you into the forest–”

“She did not,” Cassandra reassured him. “She was thankful for my efforts to preserve her cult on her behalf and promised me great rewards in return for my devotion.” She chuckled lightly. “I think she wants me to become her new Caretaker.”

“Well… it’s not like any elf will serve her,” Simon conceded. “And she will have a daughter on the way too soon, if we do nothing about it.”

“A daughter? The manatree will bloom?” Cassandra sounded worried all of a sudden. “What will you do with the fruit?”

“I’m not sure yet. Either destroy it or prevent its birth somehow, I suppose.” Now Cassandra looked downright uncomfortable. “You want to plant it?”

“I do not think it is right to blame a newborn creature for its origins, or the danger it might represent,” Cassandra replied, her voice a little weaker than before. Simon had the feeling she related to the unborn demon-born dryad due to her own history. “I hope you will reconsider.”

“I understand how you feel, Cassandra, but you must realize the threat to the world a new breed of miasma trees will represent,” Simon pointed out. Even lifeless deserts like the Navarre region would be better off with nothing over a new Darkwood. “Unless we find a way to purify the fruit.”

Cassandra considered the matter before answering, “What if we used the Paladin Crestone?”

“On the fruit?” Simon quickly caught on. “You want to implant it in the fruit the same way Mardok forced the miasma crystal onto the Muse?”

“If it is so holy, it should be able to restore the newborn dryad into a normal one,” Cassandra pointed out. “You said their Purify Perk could destroy miasma crystals and clean areas of miasma.”

It was a good point… Simon doubted the Paladin’s Purify Perk could destroy the Zodiac Fiends’ crystals or else the ancient heroes would have done so rather than seal them away, but it might help purge the Muse’s daughter of her corruption. It would put an end to the late Mardok’s plan and prevent this evil from festering any further.

“It’s worth a shot,” Simon conceded. “I would be willing to try if we can keep the Paladin Crestone contained until that day.”

“Thank you, Simon. I think this is the right path.” She looked at him a bit shyly. “Could I ask something of you?”

“Yes, of course.” Simon frowned. “Something about the Muse?”

“No.” Her tongue clicked in her mouth. “Could you… massage me?”

Simon blinked, then burst out laughing. “Of course,” he replied, sealing the promise with a kiss. “Anything for you, Cassandra.”

* * *

The next month was rather peaceful, in stark contrast with the rest of this reign so far.

Simon spent it experimenting with his upgraded crafting Perk and learning Tier 4 spells under his various mentors’ tutelage. The first of them was an improvement on the Toxin spell called Megatox.

“Elemental spells are simple enough that sorcerers developed stronger variants for different tiers,” Cassandra explained to him during one of these sessions. “They usually follow this structure: base spell, then mega, then giga, and so on, with each enhancement increasing the spellcasting tier by two.”

“So I will be able to cast a Gigatox spell at Tier 6?” Simon asked.


All in all, things were getting messier and messier, something Yip of Yore thrived on, as the Order of the Malefic Viper continued crumbling by the day, rumors now circulating that even their Chosen – who’d almost become the symbol of the Order’s revival and the Viper’s second coming – had now turned his back on them.

About a week after the announcement of the truce within the Milky Way Galaxy, the war in the rest of the multiverse took a turn. A base belonging to the Order of the Malefic Viper was attacked, and in what many came to view as a move of desperation, a low-tier god who’d been the one in charge there personally got involved. In one swoop, he killed over a thousand A-grades and several S-grades, and in response, a dozen gods descended from Yip of Yore’s side, with the Order finding themselves forced to respond in kind.

The war had now officially entered its late stages, as the war between mortals had ended, and the duels between gods began.

1005 chapter - Countless Considerations

Waiting always sucked, but sadly, Jake couldn’t really do anything but wait at this point. He had no agency to decide when the next arc of this conflict would begin but simply had to sit back and wait for a message from Ell’Hakan before he and Valhal would make their grand denouncement of the Malefic Viper.

At least he had a few things to keep himself occupied, and the first he did after the truce announcement went out was to follow Bobby to inspect the ritual they had been preparing for Jake. It was a ritual Jake hoped he would never have to use but had been made anyway to sell their story. Professionally speaking, Jake did have to admit he was curious to see a circle capable of helping him become a Usurper.

From the vibes he got from Bobby, Jake also suspected that the guy low-key wanted the Viper to die. Jake wasn’t entirely sure how much Bobby and likely a few other top people from Valhal knew about what he and Villy planned, but they did have some idea that the Viper had a plan of some sort, and they also kind of knew Jake was working with the Viper… but he also sensed some suspicion from Bobby that Jake was more than willing to become a Usurper should it come down to it.

Jake was a heretic no two ways about it. If he didn’t at least have heretical intent, how could he even consider a ritual to help him become a Usurper? No, this was something they knew for sure, and it had been confirmed several times. Yet he also seemed fine with working with the Viper, making it all very confusing in their eyes. All his heretic antics could always be excused away later by the Viper and Jake as some kind of trickery, maybe even using the Transcendence of Villy as the cause of Jake being able to leak the aura of a heretic.

From Jake’s point of view, he saw no reason to elaborate on matters to anyone quite yet. He liked the ambiguity spawned from them having no real details and would hopefully coast on that until everything was resolved. It wasn’t as if he planned on talking a lot with other people while staying at Valhal for the foreseeable future but would instead spend most of his time just doing alchemy with the excuse of preparing himself for the Usurper ritual.

While at Valhal, Carmen would be his primary contact person, and she luckily didn’t ask that many questions, in part because she genuinely didn’t seem to care much about what Jake was planning, though she had voiced that Jake joining Valhal for real would be neat. Her lack of interest was refreshing, though, and her disconnected approach to all the scheming was likely also why she saw the frankly quite obvious signs that Ell’Hakan could also be planning to walk the Usurper route, making her valuable to discuss matters with.

Anyway, seeing the huge ritual prepared by Valhal for Jake to become a Usurper was quite something. It was once more constructed atop a mountain, with it clearly being no secret they had made it, meaning its existence had definitely leaked. The ritual circle itself was over a hundred meters wide, with complex runes and scripts everywhere, making Jake wonder how long they had been working on it. Bobby seemed vague on the topic, while Carmen legitimately didn’t know, and it was definitely a bit suspicious.

The magic circle wasn’t done, though, and they needed some help from Jake to finish it, something he gladly helped do. He had been worried that he wouldn’t be able to focus for the first few days while at Valhal, considering he knew a lot of shit had to be going on in the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy and the multiverse as a whole, but spending his time analyzing the ritual helped put his mind off things.

Over the next couple of days, Jake studied the circle, talked to some people who’d helped make it, and read some books about this particular brand of magic. It wasn’t based on the same methodologies as rituals by the Order of the Malefic Viper, but honestly, even if it had been, it wouldn’t have helped Jake much.

Because one of the first things he learned was that no one truly understood what they had made. Hundreds of people had helped make the magic circle, each in charge of their own small areas. Everything was based on divine guidance and could be compared to them just tracing the lines and copying stuff down. Rather than solve some advanced math equation, they just copied from the blackboard, not knowing what the hell all the weird symbols meant.

Jake tried to understand the circle, but after those few days, he learned it was simply impossible for someone of his level to comprehend it. It was one designed by gods, with theories far beyond mortal understanding. Sure, mortals could still copy down the written formula, but that didn’t mean they had the slightest idea how to solve it by themselves. Probably made sense that a god was behind the circle, as it was made to usurp the Path of a deity.

In the same vein, Jake wouldn’t be able to operate this magic circle by himself. If it did come down to using it, the one actually activating the magic circle would be a god from Valhal – likely Gudrun, based on what Jake had been told. This did require a certain level of trust, as she could probably fuck over Jake if she so desired, but he wasn’t worried. Firstly because he never planned on using the circle in the first place, and secondly, because what would she possibly gain from fucking over someone her husband actively wanted to recruit?

Either way, the thing Jake had to do to put the finishing touches on the ritual was more or less just to infuse his DNA into it. To make it into one attuned to himself and his Path, as well as the Path that he planned on usurping. This did end up taking a few more days, and just before a full week had passed since Jake arrived on the planet, the entire magic circle was completed and ready to go should it ever be necessary. Jake walked down the mountain, knowing he would be up there the day the final confrontation between Villy and Yip took place, with the hopes that the next time he was there, it would remain inactive and that the work he’d done on it would be a waste of time.

Heading back into the city, Jake soon met up with Carmen and Bobby. After getting the two of them into a private room, he asked with quite a bit of nervousness:

“So… what’s been happening?”

“Torben finished a new brew using these weird purple berries, which have a spicy taste that really compliments most fatty foods,” Carmen answered with a smile.

“Really? Great to hear that’s the only noteworthy news,” Jake commented in a dry tone.

“Is to me,” Carmen shrugged, and while Jake knew she did care somewhat, she definitely cared less about this entire conflict than most others.


If this had been before Jake had ever gone to the Order, it would have taken him a lot longer to confidently say he could successfully create three poisons that easily, but his general knowledge had come far. Taking out some mushrooms and some of the moss, Jake tossed it all into the cauldron along with some purified water and a few drops of his blood to act as a catalyst.

Irin returned and checked in on him ten minutes or so later as Jake sat there and let the cauldron simmer. She clearly didn’t want to disturb him, but that was a needless worry.

“Found good things?” Jake asked.

“Not really,” Irin answered after getting the go-ahead to talk. “This is the first floor. There aren’t really ingredients I think anyone would consider good.”

“Fair,” Jake said.

“Are you confident in making the three poisons by yourself?” she asked.

“Well,” Jake said as he dispelled his Alchemical Flame. “Got one already.”

He opened the cauldron and nodded as he took out a few bottles. Once everything was in them, he inspected the final product.

[Weak Necrotic Mushroom Poison (Inferior)] – A poison created from the unique mushrooms of the Nine Floors of the Indigo Caverns dungeon with necrotic properties, infecting and killing off biological material in the affected area. Wounds caused by necrotic poison are somewhat difficult to heal. The poison takes effect upon any contact with any biological material.

Jake instantly knew that even if it had added a bunch of things about the dungeon, this was really just normal necrotic poison. He also knew he could bring it outside no problem and use it like normal.

“That was fast,” Irin exclaimed.

“Of course,” Jake laughed a bit as he began his second concoction. Looking at the engraving, he saw that the hundred Mushroom Man Warriors were already dead, and the dungeon cauldron was open. To test, Jake tossed a bottle in the cauldron and saw the progress tick from 0/3 to 1/3.

“Well then, second poison,” Jake smiled as he threw in the ingredients. “In the meantime, can you do me a favor?

“What is it?” Irin asked curiously.

“Can you roast the mushrooms or something to eat? The taste is driving me nuts,” Jake said spitefully.

Irin surprisingly smiled as she took out a small canister of sorts along with a large bowl. She then deposited all her collected mushrooms in the bowl and opened the container as an orange liquid covered the mushrooms. She tossed the mix a bit before nodding.

“Try one now,” she offered, and Jake promptly responded by extending a string of mana. He swooped up a mushroom and put it in his mouth as his eyes opened wide. How could he have forgotten the secret to making horrible salads edible?

Tasty dressing.

503 chapter - Truly Evil Dungeon Design

It didn’t get better. Jake had hoped that the second floor would be less mushroomy, but it wasn’t to be. In fact, there were even more mushrooms, and some of them were even aggressive and attacked them. Mushroom Man Mages had also been added to the list of enemies, usually wandering with their warrior kin.

The second floor ended up proceeding much like the first. Jake hadn’t even needed any materials gathered by others from the first floor, and he and Draskil had ended up just having a mushroom feast prepared by Irin, who shared that she had a skill related to cooking. Why would a succubus have a skill related to cooking, one might ask? Jake didn’t truly know, but he did know that he and Draskil both liked her better after she began making their mushroom meals far tastier. Perhaps she had only become a cook to integrate herself with others not only through social interactions but through their stomachs. A truly insidious strategy that Jake was totally fine with.

Anyway, the second floor was also rather dull. All it required was for the party to kill at least two hundred mushroom men and craft at least three different resource-restoring potions using the materials found in the dungeon. Jake once more did all the crafting while Reika got some combat done with an already tired-looking Bastilla joining in.

Draskil was just wandering about eating stuff, and Jake did see him at one point juggle three Mushroom Man Warriors in boredom. No, not juggle in the figurative sense but the literal one as he tossed them up in the air before catching them again.

On a side note, then Jake and the others also finally found the exit to the dungeon. Inside every passageway leading to the next floor was an exit that could be used, but it was only available in the passageway. If anyone entered the next floor, the exit would cease to function, and one couldn’t go back to earlier floors once one had been successfully passed.

The third floor was once again more of the same, but at least there was something more than mushrooms present. Several flowers and plants had begun to grow together with the mushrooms, and one part even had a small lake with water plants inside. The challenge on the third floor was to craft a poison using the lake water. The poison itself had to retain all the toxic effects of the lake water but without any of the restorative properties. In essence, it was a test of purification rather than true crafting. There was one small snag, though – the water had to also increase in potency enough to be recognized as a common rarity poison.

By default, the water was of inferior rarity, and if the restorative effects were removed, it was questionable if it would even qualify as an item. This floor was the first time Reika proved her skills as she quickly figured out a way to distill the water, and Jake quickly realized that if he then just added some mushrooms also present on the floor, he would be able to make it.

On this floor, Bastilla also had to stop joining in on the combat or at least only fight with Reika. Reika herself was also struggling as the mushroom men got stronger, and the mages and warriors now also had something called defenders, which carried two mushroom shields.

Ah, not that there was any cause for concern if they could pass the floor or even subsequent ones. Draskil still ripped every single opponent apart with ease, and Jake had only killed a few himself who got in his way, all of them with only a few moves with his two katars.

From the fourth floor, the dynamic became more how they initially planned to do the dungeon. Draskil was in charge of the killing, with Bastilla primarily dismantling the corpses using skills Jake had never seen before. Usually, any creature killed only dropped its core or one other item, but Bastilla could dismantle a corpse and gain far more. Using her skills, most parts of the creature would turn into items of some variety, but her greatest ability was how she could redirect the Records of a slain creature. She could change it so that rather than the orb storing all the energy, it would instead enter another or several other parts of the body. Sure, crafters could already infuse cores into materials from a monster, but Bastilla didn’t just infuse the core into something – she infused the whole damn corpse. It was a bit weird seeing an entire mushroom man be reduced to a small piece of white mushroom flesh teeming with energy, but who was Jake to argue with system rules?

Reika and Jake also began to team up from the fourth floor and did all the alchemy. The challenges got quite a bit more complicated, and it was clear that the fourth one had a spike, likely due to being the last required floor one had to pass to complete the dungeon.

Oh yeah! The fourth floor also had a boss. Mushroom Man Commander. It was a bigger than usual mushroom man surrounded by many other mushroom men. Jake needed a piece from the boss to pass the floor, so he had Draskil be nice and not destroy the mushroom too much so Bastilla could still use her skills properly on it.


“Fighting… holds little meaning,” Ell’Hakan spoke. “A fight is always just a single line in the history books. A declaration of the outcome after the fact. Tell me, how many were truly aware of our brief battle here today? A few dozen? Add on a few bored gods gazing upon events they truly don’t care about, and it is little more than a handful. My words of the battle will echo more true than anyone else. All they know is that a fight took place, and it ended up with me left standing and the Malefic’s Chosen gone. ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) I know what you are hoping to accomplish, but let me assure you; a story is better told if not spoiled beforehand. Killing the Chosen would have been a waste. I am not telling a small tale but a true epic.”

“One where you try to define what is the truth,” Miranda said.

“Precisely,” Ell’Hakan smiled. “I have enjoyed our brief conversation, even if it was rather one-sided. I would advise you to leave now or show your hand as I can delay no longer before my partners get dissatisfied with my dallying.”

He snapped his fingers as Miranda’s doll caught fire and burned down in an instant, throwing Miranda back to her real body. In the middle of the ritual circle, her small doll had now turned to ashes. She only had time to orient herself before she felt a pulse go through the barrier. The pulse seemed to attack not the barrier’s energy but the very framework.

“How long?” Miranda asked.

“Done, was just waiting for you,” Neil said.

Miranda nodded as she hurried over to the teleportation circle. Just before stepping on it, she briefly spoke a final spell before getting teleported away along with most other notable characters in Haven – besides Sultan and Arnold.

No one liked sand. As spoken by a not-that-wise man long ago: It’s coarse, rough, irritating, and gets everywhere. And that was normal sand. Magical sand was even worse. Not because it was finer and somehow more everywhere, but because it sure as hell was coarser and rougher by a significant magnitude.

And then there were sandstorms. Sandstorms on Earth before the system could be devastating, but a post-system sandstorm was on an entirely different level.

Jake was already in an even worse mood than usual when it arrived. He had tried to hurry through the desert while hunting down sand worms, but the fuckers were borderline impossible to kill. Even the peak D-grade ones Jake could not easily get rid of. Their bodies were massive, and they clearly had an equally massive health pool, but the worst part was their behavior. He had yet to have a single one even try to fight back. He had even tried to attack a C-grade, done all the preparations, been as ready as he could, only for him to land a single Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter before the worm dove straight down and swam away for him to never see it again.

That is when he truly realized… these worms did not at all care about fighting. They just ate stuff. Jake had wondered how that would even work, as the surface was bound to run out of natural treasures and high-energy items at some point.

Which is where the sandstorms came in.

It was like the very horizon had moved towards him. A towering wall of sand reaching into the sky for several kilometers had barreled towards Jake as he tried to fly through the desert. He had reacted quickly and tried to mimmick the worms by boring into the ground and hiding until things blew over. This should work, right?

Wrong.

Because this sandstorm was a true marvel of the elements. It was a zone of earth and wind mana that mixed and created what could almost be called a moving domain. A true wonderland for creatures that relied on these energies. Or one to spawn such creatures.

Elementals simply came into being within the massive sandstorm, and while the sand worms did not want to fight, these elementals sure did. Like as if a giant vacuum cleaner had been turned on, several elementals sucked up all the sand around Jake and pulled him out of the desert.

He felt sand hit his body and himself take damage as it impacted him with near super-sonic speeds. Sand even found the eyeholes of his mask and hit one eye, forcing him to close it. Jake was well and truly pissed as he used his one good eye to Identify one of the elementals attacking him.

[Sand Elemental – lvl 184]

One would maybe think that this kind of environment was bad for Jake. And they would be right. But that did not really matter much when all he faced were D-grade elementals.

Arcane Awakening in the stable mode activated as a faint arcane barrier covered his entire body. This passive shield was usually not a big deal, but when it blocked thousands of small “attacks” every second? It allowed him to effectively ignore the environmental effects and move to kill his foes as he did the one thing that always worked: blow them the hell up with destructive arcane arrows.

Meanwhile, Jake made his way out of the sandstorm. As he traveled through it, he saw entire sand worms had been dragged out of the ground and into the storm, as well as hundreds of other creatures. The sand worms seemed to make it out, though, as they worked together and used sand magic of their own to help others escape. Elementals consumed the creatures that could not get away, and it was as if the sandstorm itself absorbed some of the energy whenever something died.

However, while the sandstorm took, it also gave, as it left behind treasures. Treasure generated from the sandstorm itself that simply dropped onto the sand and was left behind. If not for being stuck in the middle of the damn storm, Jake would have marveled at the ways the ecosystem had evolved.

After more than an hour of struggle, Jake finally made it out of the sandstorm and saw the massive natural phenomenon just continue sweeping across the desert. His momentary sense of relief from being out was promptly broken as he realized he had been flying back in the direction he had just come from to get out of the damn storm.

“Fuck me,” Jake muttered as he wondered what to do. As he was flying up in the air, he saw dozens of sandworms begin to emerge below to consume the natural treasures dropped from the sandstorm. As Jake stared at them, he got an idea. An idea that just might work.

He just needed one of them to eat him first…

524 chapter - Into the Ground

Getting a massive sandworm to eat you was actually way easier than Jake had expected. Not that Jake should have expected much from the get-go, it was a stupid expectation. All he had done was just land on the sand, get semi-close to a natural treasure while using Arcane Stealth, and boom, a worm popped up and swallowed him. It was a level 198 worms, so damn close to evolution too.

The worm nearly instantly noticed it had caught something it didn’t want and tried to spit him out. However, Jake held on inside its massive maw as he spoke. ”Hey! Worm! Make a deal!”

It did not react but kept trashing and trying to spit Jake out. That is when he realized that the sand worms had no ears and probably not even a sense of hearing, making him switch to telepathy.

”Worm. Make deal. You help me, I help you. If not, death.”

As he said the words, Jake took out a handful of earth affinity herbs and tossed them down the gullet of the worm. It was a gamble… that paid off immediately as the worm stopped moving. By now, Jake was hanging onto the flesh walls of the giant worm’s mouth as he spoke again.

”If you help me get that way,” Jake sent telepathically as he poked the side of the giant worm’s mouth with a weak arcane bolt. ”I will feed you. Okay?”

It should not come as a surprise that the giant worm could not speak. Jake was really gambling on this idea as he assumed that these sand worms were dumb as bricks and-

”I apologize; I think there is some kind of misunderstanding. I did not mean to try and eat you… actually, what are you?” Jake heard a deep rumbling voice in his head.

Wait, what? Jake questioned himself.

”You understand me?” Jake asked, confused.


With no one else around, Jake could also fully focus only on the Prima Guardian. He didn’t have to dedicate even a smidgen of his attention to keeping others safe or consider if his actions would put others in challenging situations. It was just him, the chimera, and a vast open nothingness as far as the eye could see.

Jake gladly fought the Prima Guardian while the chimera’s two blades moved at incredible speeds as Jake dodged and weaved around them, counterattacking whenever possible. He parried and took advantage of its movements, as even if the chimera was adaptable and could move in unnatural ways, it still had patterns, and Jake could still read it.

The two of them flashed through space as they rapidly switched between who was on the offensive, pushing each other back, Jake landing blow after blow as he couldn’t avoid taking some damage himself. Blood began to fill the emptiness of their environment, along with the skin that flayed off Jake’s body as he truly pushed himself beyond his limits.

Even before he chased the Prima Guardian, he had to consume a stamina potion to keep himself from running out, and now his resources were draining even quicker. If the fight dragged on too long, Jake would more than likely be the first one to fall… so he had to be the one to finish the fight.

Eternal Hunger did help a bit to keep Jake in the game, its energy-stealing effect very effective against the monstrous resource pool of the Guardian. He landed several stabs with it, even if the Voidblade did more raw damage. The weapon from Arnold was honestly ridiculous in how good it was at cutting and stabbing, and it was responsible for many of the injuries marring the Prima Guardian’s body.

Exchanging dozens of blows a second, Jake was waiting for his chance, as he had a trick up his sleeve he wanted to try. After a clash where Jake got a minor cut on his thigh in trade for a deep stab into the chest of the Prima Guardian, Jake initiated the plan. He instantly charged in again as he released a wave of arcane energy mixed with dark mana toward the boss, causing a giant explosion of destructive black mist.

The Prima kept an eye on Jake throughout as the katar-wielding hunter appeared from within the cloud behind the chimera. It responded quickly, turning around and cutting down with both swords… only to find the version of Jake it attacked, dispersing into a mist of cursed energy.

Rapidly turning around, the Prima Guardian looked for Jake, confused, as it released a shockwave of mana to disperse the black mist around it. As the black mist was pushed away, Jake was still nowhere to be seen, making the Prima Guardian respond by sending out crescent waves of water, cutting through space.

One of these waves suddenly struck something… a seemingly solid mass in the middle of the nothingness. The moment it did, and before the Prima Guardian could fully process that it had hit anything, an explosion of magic was released as an Arcane Powershot tore across space toward the Guardian. It wanted to dodge, but Jake used Primal Gaze one final time.

A Protean Arrow, with all of Jake’s Hunting Momentum infused, struck the Prima Guardian right in its chest, piercing deeply into it before exploding. An arm and a leg were shot off into the vastness of space, and the creature was blown apart, blood and gore spread out everywhere.

Jake had done something he had long theorized. Using Eternal Shadow and obscuring the sight of his enemy, he had briefly managed to activate Unseen Hunter in the state where he had to stand still due to the boss losing sight of him. It was an incredibly tight timing, but Jake had a transcendent ability to know when something or someone was looking at him, and the second he noticed the Guardian had shifted its entire attention to the Eternal Shadow, he used the skill and blended into space.

This allowed him to not only buy time to briefly charge an Arcane Powershot using his Protean Arrow but also to benefit from his Stealth Attack skill. If the Prima Guardian hadn’t been swift to release a large area of effect attack to sniff him out, he could have charged the arrow for even longer… but this had to be good enough, right? Because Jake wasn’t sure he had that much more in the tank.

At the same time as the Prima was blown apart, Jake’s eyes cracked, as the irises in both fractured, turning him completely blind. He also felt the impact on his soul, having overdrawn himself far too much, as he felt an insane headache. His consciousness wavered… as something appeared behind him.

With nothing but a small part of its upper body, head, and one arm barely attached to its shoulder, the Prima Guardian had teleported behind Jake. The sword in its hand was gone, but it still struck forward, its hand glowing with the familiar aura of Carmen’s most powerful strike: Fist of Ragnarok.

Jake didn’t have time to think. Instinctively, he began to turn as the fist closed in on his head. Both katars appeared in Jake’s hands as he roared while stabbing forward, the fist growing nearer… as time slowed down. Moment of the Primal Hunter activated, as Jake’s katars were both giving off the aura of Piercing Fang, one aimed for what remained of the Guardian’s chest and the other for the head.

With time on his side, Jake’s attacks would arrive first… a strike that would no doubt be deadly toward the Guardian on its last legs. And in that final moment, the chimera tried to adapt one last time. Time began to bend around it as its own version of Moment of the Primal Hunter activated.

Jake felt his own heartbeat. A single thump of indignance… as the Prima Guardian just stopped. Its glowing fist lost all power, and white glowing fractures covered what was left of its body. The chimera’s skin turned gray and wrinkly before its entire body turned to ashes before Jake’s attack could even land. Time returned to normal, as all that remained was drifting dust that also soon disappeared into nothingness.

Instinctively, he knew… the Prima Guardian had tried to do something it simply shouldn’t and couldn’t do. It had simply faced the consequences of trying to overreach and escape the concept of time for even a moment. Well, the consequences if you didn’t have an overpowered Bloodline, that is.

939 chapter - Prima Guardian Aftermath

Not far from the Prima Vessel, most of the strike team had gathered after Jake and the Prima Guardian disappeared. Eron was busy healing those injured, as Sylphie had taken off to help deal with some of the regular Primas, having taken the least damage of them all. Well, not counting Eron, who seemed impervious to getting killed over and over again. But no one really counted him.

“Think he’ll be okay?” Carmen asked, a bit worried as they waited to hear something – anything – about what was going on far above them in space. Jake had cut off all communication as he focused on the fight, and no one could really fault her for not feeling entirely certain Jake would be fine. He was facing a peak creature at level 349, all alone. A creature that all of them had struggled against.

“He sounded confident,” the Fallen King said. “I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where he doesn’t win.”

“I think a bigger concern is how long it’ll take to fetch him,” Caleb said as he massaged his shoulder, addressing the swelling from overusing his boosting skill earlier.

“Sandy has been informed and is on their way,” the Sword Saint said, sitting in a chair he had taken out of his spatial storage.

“Right,” Carmen nodded as she sighed.

To say they didn’t all feel a bit conflicted that Jake was going to finish this fight alone was an understatement. However, they also recognized that Jake was the only one capable of chasing the chimera, and even the Fallen King knew that while he could be summoned to Jake’s side, he would likely be more of a burden than a boon.


The swordsman must have thought he was safe and began to drink the potion, and didn't notice the spike of ruinous flames hidden among the blue flames. Julius used his perception skill to direct the spike through the chaos, and before any of them could react, the spike lodged itself into the man's eye, killing him instantly.

The other two panicked and tried to save their comrade, but it was too late. They took a half-step back and stared at Julius with nervousness.

Julius took a moment to breathe and let his soul try to recover. Not to mention that his injuries were pretty bad. His arms were still pierced by his own constructs, he had severe burns in his mouth, and he had several internal injuries.

He looked around and noticed that nobody had arrived yet. Perhaps the city guards were on a break or stuck in traffic and needed more time to arrive. That or the explosion of mana he had sensed was the reason for their absence.

“Why are you trying to kill me?” He asked loudly.

The two remaining assailants stared at him blankly. They weren’t responding to him, but he could feel the wind mage preparing something. The blue-robed mage was likely preparing something as well, but Julius wasn’t able to sense it if he was. That was a little worrying, and he reminded himself to be careful.

He had a feeling that the blue-robed mage was the most dangerous one out of all of them. The problem was that he doubted his ability to take them out quickly. His gut was telling him that he would have been hard-pressed to beat this mage even if he fought him alone.

The other remaining mage didn’t have the same type of intensity or willpower that this mage had. Thus, most of Julius’s attention was focused on this man, which is why he reacted instantly when he sensed the first signs of the man’s technique activating.

He teleported backwards, narrowly avoiding the bolt of black energy racing toward his face. Unlike the black mass before, this was extremely quick and almost homed in on his position. If not for his preemptive reaction, he would have been hit.

He still didn’t know what this black energy was. His best guess was that it was related to some kind of disruption element. It was actually similar in a lot of ways to the energy the Null Fiends had used all that time ago.

He backed off and sidestepped the attacks from the other enemy. With the ice mage out of the fight, they seemed to be a lot more cautious around him. He didn’t see any openings for him to sneak in with [Void Step] either.

He didn’t know what to do, and his degrading soul wasn’t helping him. He could feel his control over his skills slipping as the fight prolonged. His soul injury was another reason why he hadn’t bothered to use his healing skill to heal his injuries, despite them being bad enough to warrant it.

[Phoenix Renewal] was almost entirely dedicated to keeping his soul intact for the time being. If he were to distract it now, he didn’t know what would happen. It was barely holding together for the moment, but he didn’t know if it would still hold together if he loosened his hold over it.

He had to decide whether to heal his body or to keep his soul in one piece. The choice was pretty obvious to him. Still, it was a problem, and he was in a bad situation with no plan to get out of it.

He backed away, blasting himself to the side with kinetic energy as more attacks rained down on him. The wounds on his body were increasing, and he was forced to teleport far up into the air, removing a healing potion from his storage ring. He rarely drank healing potions since he had a healing skill of his own, but desperate times required desperate measures.

He also consumed a mana potion as well. The constant teleportations consumed enormous amounts of mana, and the previous teleport had almost drained him. He normally wasn’t able to teleport that far since [Void Step] wasn’t a long-range teleportation skill, but he had pushed himself to do so.

His breathing was heavy as he tried to recover. His wounds were healing slowly, but the blood stopped flowing as rapidly, and he could feel his organs stitching back into one piece.

The mana potion was very potent; it was the one he had received from Freya, but there was only so much it could refill his dwindling reserves. Not to mention that the mana from mana potions was inherently less efficient than the mana he cultivated from his core.

He was barely able to take a few moments to breathe when he felt someone closing in on him. Apparently, the blue-robed mage had tracked him up here and had already closed in. Julius had a feeling that the mage had managed to sneak some kind of mark on his body. If that was the case, then he really needed to find the mark and get rid of it.

The problem was that he wasn’t able to sense it. He searched for it while the attacker continued to shoot these bolts of black light at him. If the black bolts got close enough, small vapors of black energy tried to seep into his skin. He didn’t give them any opportunities to infect him, and he wiped out this energy with his ruinous aura before it could leech into him.

While distracted with this, he didn’t even sense the sudden spatial warping right behind him until it was too late. He blamed his injured soul and tired mind.

Still, it was a mistake, and he knew right away how fucked he was when he felt the newcomer’s domain spread out and encapsulate Julius. His soul, which had already been feeling the pressure, was suddenly crushed by this domain.

He could feel his soul tearing bit by bit as the Tier 5 held him in place. He was completely unable to move as the weight of their aura and various concepts held him in place.

“How disappointing, Hayden. You couldn’t even finish off a Tier 3 with an injured soul?” The newcomer said with a mocking tone. Julius noticed that this was a woman’s voice, and he could feel her ice-cold breath rolling down his neck as she stood behind him. It felt like someone had put his head in a guillotine.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” the blue-robed mage said with a deep bow, not even bothering to make excuses.

The Tier 5 lady stayed silent for a moment as she stared at the man, then scoffed and waved her arm casually. “Well, either way. Time is up. I distracted the city guards for as long as I could, but they will arrive shortly. We don’t want to be here when they do. Where are Yubel, Tuskin, and Fisher? I can’t sense their presence.”

“Yubel and Tuskin are dead. The boy killed them,” the blue robe said casually, as if it didn’t really matter to him.

“That’s a shame, but they were expendable, and ultimately why they were selected for this mission. However, Fisher isn’t as expendable. So where is he?” The woman’s tone suddenly turned serious, and Julius couldn’t move, but he could practically feel her gaze piercing toward the blue-robed mage.

Unlike when he mentioned the ice mage, he seemed much more worried now. Julius saw the man fiddle with his hands anxiously.

“He returned early,” the man said, looking at the ground.

“Why?” The woman’s voice was ice cold.

“...”

The woman’s domain spread out and encapsulated the mage as well.

“Why?” She repeated forcefully.

“Lady Vale was injured after her ambush on the boy,” the mage admitted with a wince. Julius couldn’t expand his senses while being contained within the domain, but he didn’t need his aura senses to know that the man was terrified of the woman’s reaction.

“How badly?” The woman asked coldly.

“I’m not sure.”

There was a long pause, but eventually the lady sighed. “I knew it was a bad idea to have her participate. But she insisted. Maybe this will teach her to be more careful.”

She pinched her nose and didn’t look up when she used her other hand to slap Julius in the back of the head. It felt like someone hit him with a semi-truck, and his consciousness flickered.

“Stop trying to mess with my domain, kid,” she said with a dark look.

He held back a groan as she increased the pressure in her domain. He had been trying to use his aura to find a gap, but there wasn’t a gap to exploit. This Tier 5 was of a totally different caliber than the Tier 5 crafter he had fought before.


Then he spotted a few people making way as the crowd split to reveal two figures. Reika walked along with an old man using a cane as he took small steps. Jake narrowed his eyes as he saw the backlash of the Transcendent skill so clearly. The Saint looked and felt weak, but at the same time, his gaze was as sharp if not sharper than ever before, and even as he walked with a cane, he gave off an aura making no one dare try to start something.

He had barely entered the hall as he also disappeared to his own private booth along with Reika and a slew of other people he assumed were from his clan. Yet before he disappeared, Jake spotted the small mark on the side of his head just above his left ear - a small scar left by Jake’s arrow during the final moments.

Jake brought his hand up to the scar still on his own neck too. Scars after the system were not as before. They didn’t need to exist but could easily heal… but there were instances where they would remain anyway. If the one with the scar willed for them to stay, evolution and healing could not and would not remove them, but there were also circumstances where a scar held certain meaning or implications. In Jake’s case, it was a reminder, and he had a feeling it was for the old man too. Also, curses could cause them, but this was not one such case.

As he stood there, he noticed two people walk in he instantly recognized.

It was a large man in a robe walking with a familiar staff together with a lithe woman. It was the elemental mage Roman and the dual-wielding rogue from the Rubik’s Cube Vault – or Roman and Felicia if one was more a fan of names.

Jake was a bit surprised by seeing them together, and without really thinking much, he just sent them both an invitation making them both stop on the spot. They looked at each other and exchanged a few words as they both disappeared only to appear in the booth.

They were briefly disorientated before they both spotted him. Jake had already made his mask invisible by now, and even if he couldn’t remember if they had ever seen his face before, his aura was no doubt recognizable.

“Yo, long time no see!” Roman greeted happily as Felicia gave a more subtle greeting.

“It’s only been like two weeks,” Jake rightfully correctly him.

“Felt like an eternity to ma poor heart,” Roman joked as he went over, finally [N O V E L I G H T] seeing the others in the room. “Oi, hey there, the name’s Roman, and this is my gal Felicia!”

Felicia shifted her legs a bit as he also introduced herself. “Pleasure to make your acquaintances.”

Miranda tossed Jake a look as he explained. “We met during a puzzle Vault and solved it together, to then get ambushed by those independent factions. Quite the bonding experience and we talked about them coming to Haven after too.”

“Ah,” Miranda said as she introduced herself. “Pleasure to meet you two; I am Miranda, the city leader of Haven, and on account of the city, you two would be more than welcome to come. We are always open to more powerful D-grades.”

Jake decided to identify them while they exchanged pleasantries, and he saw Roman had actually made some damn good progress.

[Human – lvl 125]

He then saw the staff the guy carried around as he put two and two together. Roman had just been able to use the staff and now carried it around like it was his child. He knew for a fact the guy had spatial storage. But, being kind, Jake chose to not tease him. At least not about that.

“So… you two?” Jake said teasingly to Roman.

“Aye!” he instantly agreed with not a single trace of shame or embarrassment. “Me an the lass worked together after that damn cube and been thick as thieves ever since!”

He put his arm around Felicia or at least tried to as a palm to the face held him back. Because while he was utterly shameless, Felicia was a bit more of the reserved type as she answered with her hand still on Roman’s chin: “We work well together…”

Jake just chuckled as he invited them to stay in the room as they talked a bit about how they spent the rest of the Hunt. Apparently, the two of them had gone on for a few more days, mainly just hunting things, until they finally came to a Vault with no one else around.

That Vault had proven to be a bit too far above their abilities and made them both leave the Hunt. Interestingly enough, they had been in physical contact with each other while leaving the Hunt, making them both end up in the same place once out. Afterward, they concluded this was likely due to them both not joining from any city, as the same didn’t seem true for others. They had also both gotten lucky as fuck and managed to hold on, so they left right at the time the Monarch was triggered, allowing them to keep all their stuff.

As they finished up their conversation, the timer slowly reached zero as the first phase of the Auction officially began.

System Announcement:

The first phase of the Auction has now begun, where all rare rarity items will be sold off. All items will be listed with a set minimum bidding price by the seller, as well as a potential buyout price, allowing anyone to instantly buy the item.

There are a total of 84,913 listings of rare items for sale during this first phase of the Auction. These items will be posted in batches of five hundred a time at two-minute intervals.

Once all items have been posted, there will be a period of one hour before all bidding ends. Items will be posted in order of minimum bets and buyout price. Any item not bought at the end of this phase will be returned to the original seller.

The first batch will be posted in two minutes.

Jake skimmed the message as he did some quick maths.

With five hundred items every two minutes, it would take approximately three hundred and forty minutes to post them all, and with the extra hour, it would be a total of around four hundred minutes. In easier terms, six hours and forty minutes or so with a constant barrage of rare items.

Thank Villy for high stats, Jake thought, with everyone else no doubt thinking something similar. Five hundred items every two minutes, or more than four a second, did seem extreme, but honestly? It was manageable if you put your mind to it and focused only on going through them without any distractions. Jake for sure could do it, and he had a feeling merchants were especially suited for the task.

As for Sultan, he did not hesitate for a moment as he hurried over to a chair and took out his usual small black book as he sat down and closed his eyes to enter meditation. The others around him did the same as they found chairs or just sat on the floor, even the otherwise unserious Roman shifting his mood.

Jake himself also found a comfortable chair and moved it to the large window panel as he stared down at the massive hall where he saw tens of thousands in total. Even then, Jake was certain many factions had not brought everyone, or not everyone was in the hall. This is without mentioning the many people in the booths too.

As he sat there looking out, the first batch came. An interface appeared before him, looking straight out of a videogame auction system. But an improved VR version. He could even mentally categorize items, and just by thinking about what he wanted to see, they appeared.

Yet, just as they appeared, a few also began disappearing as they were bought out. The bidding numbers rapidly began climbing on nearly everything. He also pretty much confirmed that the information about an item was based on your ability to Identify them based on the descriptions.

But a few items also had small notes or descriptions left by the seller, and there were even a few bundles of items. Checking everything, he did not find much interesting but did begin to get an idea of the prices. They seemed to mainly be in the tens of thousands to a hundred thousand for rare items, but he did also see some reach over a million. These were primarily those auxiliary tools, and the most expensive of the rare items was going for over one million and two hundred thousand. Coincidentally, it was a cauldron.


Something in its eyes seemed to spook the Red Commander. There was a momentary panic in his expression as he glanced up at the sky and at the magic suddenly targeting him. "You can cast?" he shouted. "You aren't supposed to be able to—"

He cut himself off, perhaps realizing that it was a waste of time to speak instead of break the spell. A red pulse rippled from him, no doubt an attempt to dispel the barrage; Torment's Shadow noted distantly that it might have worked on a spell of the tenth tier or less. It would have to avoid those lesser spells, then.

The Red Commander snarled, then made a rough gesture, a second attempt to block the spell. Thick trails of blood poured out of his armor, their ends solidifying into makeshift shields of flesh and bone, radiating with corrupted power. The blood stayed in place as tendrils that kept the Commander attached to his shields, allowing him to move each one independently.

And move them he did. A full eight out of the twelve stars were deflected, slapped to the side and spearing deep into the ground. Torment's Shadow watched as each star speared a deep fissure into the realm, reflexively dispelling them before they fell too far.

The other four, however, whirled around the shields to settle and strike on the various pieces of the Red Commander's armor: both of his gauntlets and one of the greaves. The fourth made for the final limb, but Torment's Shadow twitched a finger at the last moment, and the star instead burrowed straight into the Red Commander's helmet.

In an instant, all four pieces of armor turned into plasma. And unlike [Plasma Transmutation], which seemed to create plasma that was held together by the plasma aspect, these pieces threatened to vaporize and explode instantly. They held for only a moment.

Torment's Shadow used that moment to activate the [Hand of the Plasmic Godsmith], turning each transmuted piece of armor into divine-grade starsteel the realm itself wasn't meant to support.

The Red Commander stumbled back with an agonized scream. The acrid smell of burning flesh filled the air, and his skin bubbled and popped, melting into his throat and choking off the scream for a half second before a pulse of flesh-shaping magic forced it back into place.

Torment's Shadow did not react. Instead, it spoke, its voice bland and empty.

"I thought you might appreciate the upgrade to your armor," it said, quietly activating [Blistering Physique]. "Divine-grade starsteel is hard to get, you know. Even for me, that kind of metal would take a few minutes to cut through, and that's assuming you don't have any measures in place to protect against my barriers."

It half-crouched to stare at the Red Commander, who was still scrabbling impotently at his helmet. The corrupted flesh magic he used was enough to keep him alive, and he was evidently used to some level of pain, because anyone else should have been utterly incapacitated by it.

"What are you doing?!" the Red Commander rasped. Torment's Shadow tilted its head curiously for a moment before it realized the Commander wasn't even talking to it. He was talking to the Greater Indictment he'd trapped into servitude.

It had forgotten about that Indictment for a moment. It looked at it now, a broken thing with pieces of corrupted armor clinging to its form like melting glue, and the Indictment stared back at it.

"Help me," the Red Commander shouted.

"As you wish," the Greater Indictment said. Torment's Shadow didn't miss the way his gaze lingered on the Commander, as if he would much rather do nothing. But the armor fused into him flickered regardless, forcing him into obedience.

He reached out to swipe at Torment's Shadow.

A note from SilverLinings

Patreon is 10 chapters + 3 interstitial chapters ahead. Book 2 is complete. I'm technically taking a short break, but still posting smaller interstitial/intermission chapters in the interim (this will be true for RoyalRoad once I'm finished with Book 2 here.)

92 — Book 2, Chapter 40 — Red Symphony, Pt 2

Fortunately, Torment's Shadow had cast [Blistering Physique] before all this. It might not have had the edge it needed without the spell. With it, it noticed the slight give in the air around the Greater Indictment a moment before the swipe would have made contact, and it leapt backward, eyes narrowing.

Even with the distance it had created, the Greater Indictment had managed to steal a chunk of the speed and power currently flowing through its body. Not much, thankfully, given [Blistering Physique] was only a sixth-tier spell, but it was something to be wary about, nonetheless. Evidently, the spells it cast were not subject to the same hierarchy its own existence normally was.

It still cast the spell a second time, stacking the benefits atop itself and noting that the second attempt was only about a quarter as effective. There was a limit to how much it could stack, apparently.

At the same time... it examined the Greater Indictment approaching slowly. The way the air around it warped was distinctly noticeable, and it indicated that the power it had wasn't entirely voluntary.

"Ontological drain," Torment's Shadow mused. "You steal the traits of anything that gets too close to you."

Worse, what it was sensing around him meant that his power out extended a few feet, like something of a draining aura. Torment's Shadow would need to keep its distance. Its barriers might provide some defense—those were largely immune to such abilities, given a pure expression of its mana stood nearly at the top of the hierarchy of power—but if the Red Commander was a Lower Branch cultist, then he would likely have a countermeasure ready.

He was still screaming on the ground, though. Desperately trying to get to his feet, forcing his magic to heal around the pain, but there was limited utility in that. Torment's Shadow decided it had time to experiment.

It made a dense barrier of mana and pushed, sending the Greater Indictment stumbling back for a few feet. Just as it suspected might happen, the Red Commander looked up and grunted, then made a weak, dismissive gesture; Torment's Shadow watched as a relic attached to the Red Commander's waist activated with a pulse of Abyssal energy, promptly disrupting that barrier and his control over it.

Unsurprising. The Lower Branches had been desperate to find some form of countermeasure against its abilities during the war, and this was similar to something it had encountered before.

This time, with an Abyssal's power behind it, the relic did something new: it stole the power from the Shadow's disrupted barrier, draining its mana directly into the Red Commander.

Torment's Shadow grunted in annoyance, knowing what was coming. That boost of mana was, unfortunately, enough to get the Red Commander back to his feet. He took a deep breath like the mana he'd stolen had been refreshing, even stretching and cracking his neck with false nonchalance. The starsteel armor he wore was still burning him, but the mana he'd acquired acted almost like a buffer, empowering his flesh-shaping enough to protect him for the moment.

"Yggdrasil's End," the Red Commander said, letting out a slightly pained grunt. His voice shook slightly, but became steadier by the moment, and he let out a rasping laugh. "You're almost as terrifying as the legends say. And the Gift gave you an upgrade, too. How quaint. Do you really think it'll be enough, after what you did to us? Do you really think we haven't prepared?"

Torment's Shadow didn't bother to respond.

Mana overload detected! Attempting to compensate...

Adjusting spell construct...

[Bia's Hammer] has evolved into [Purified Kinetic Splinters]!

[Purified Kinetic Splinters, Level 1] [Twelfth Tier (Unique), Active] [1.0e30 Mana]

Flood a designated area with microscopic splinters of pure kinetic energy to tear an opponent apart from the inside out. Each splinter carries enough power to pierce tenth-tier wards and barriers, and temporarily disrupt mana use in a small radius around them.


“Daddy, daddy, you’re breaking my heart. That is such a downgrade.” Norbelle gave him a sorry look. “Can’t you just spank me like you used to and call it a day? I like it when you slap me like Thalas.”

What the… Was she mocking him? There was no way she acted like this when Father and her were alone. “What game are you playing, my daughter?”

“I don’t know, what’s yours?” She put her hands behind her back and smiled from ear to ear. “Why are you sitting on Father’s throne, Simon?”

A note from Maxime J. Durand (Void Herald)

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He sat down on the trunk of a tree and coaxed Drasil out of his core. The small spirit still spent most of his time sleeping in his core, feeding off of Julius’s life mana. However, he did enjoy coming out and being in nature.

Julius did sense other people in the garden as well. [Spatial Perception] picked up on some students hiding behind the foliage. To his embarrassment, he saw that there were a few couples that were having “fun” away from prying eyes. He made sure to keep his focus away from them and give them some privacy. He felt kind of creepy, observing their private interaction, it wasn’t his fault that his skill was too good.

He felt Drasil rummaging around in one of his pockets, searching for the life core he loved so much. Julius smiled at the cute spirit and took out the core from his storage ring. Drasil chirped in joy and frantically climbed over Julius’s lap to rush toward the core.

Drasil jumped on top of the core, hugging it with all four of his limbs. Julius smiled as the adorable green spirit cooed in happiness and rubbed his face all over the core.

Julius just sat down and watched Drasil play around with the core as he thought about what he wanted to do regarding Concepts. The fact that Gabriel had told him that Concepts were a thing was a revelation that changed how he was going to approach things.

He was a little upset that he hadn’t known about this even after spending so much time trying to find information about epic skills and higher tiers in the library. He wished he had known about it earlier. But at least he knew about it now. If Gabriel hadn’t come and searched for him, Julius might not have known about Concepts until much later, so he should be grateful for what he got.

He was confused as to why the others hadn’t talked about Concepts to him. He was pretty certain that they had epic skills of their own. While they didn’t know exactly how close Julius was to creating his own epic skill, he would have thought that they had a good idea that it was the next logical step for him.

He didn’t think they were purposefully hiding things from him, but it seemed like a big thing not to talk about. He would have to ask them the next time he saw them.

A note from l-Ryn-l

Thank you for reading and I really hope you enjoyed. If you want to read ahead, Patreon is currently 25 chapters ahead and rising. If you want to check it out, feel free to.

Chapter 98: Odd Man Out

Julius technically still had some classes for the day, but he decided to wait until tomorrow to go back. After all, what was a day extra going to do? He had already missed two weeks. The good news was that Gabriel assured him that it wasn’t unusual for students to not attend class for a while because of their focus on their own advancement. Some had to take extended breaks in order to break through a Tier or gain enlightenment on a Concept.

With that being said, it was more for older students, but on rare occasions, younger students had to do so as well. Therefore, Julius should not have to worry about anyone causing any problems for him. Gabriel told him that he would talk to the other professors for him just in case.

Back to the subject of Concepts, Julius thought that Sharpness was a Concept that he would gladly take and use for his skills. But he wondered what would happen if he learned a Fire Concept, a Life Concept, and maybe a Kinetic Concept. What would that mean for his skills?

Did skills need an appropriate Concept to evolve to epic or did any Concept qualify? It would seem a little weird if you could evolve a fire skill with something like an Ice Concept. Perhaps that was the reason why [Spatial Perception] hadn’t evolved yet, even though it had been at level 19 for a long time.

It was an interesting idea. If that’s true, what kind of Concept would [Spatial Perception] need? Would it require a Space Concept if that even existed? Or could he use any Concept? He probably should have asked more questions before he left Gabriel. But in his defense, he hadn’t thought of that until now.

He didn’t want to think about that for now. He had looked in the library about the other options he had been offered earlier. The only two that had him reconsidering [Composite Mana] were [Compound Barrier] and [Compound Strike]. After looking at what little the library had to offer about those skills, Julius was able to at least find out that those two skills were quite highly rated when it came to rare skills. He didn’t know if they were rare+, but then again, he had seen almost nothing regarding rare+ skills in his time in the library.

The interesting thing about those two skills that tempted Julius was the fact that both skills were regarded as very good amplifiers for either defense or offense. The thing that Julius didn’t really know about was if he were to choose [Composite Mana] would three of his skills synergize or would it take more?

Most of the time, skill synergies happened in groups of three, but there were definitely cases when that wasn’t required. There were evolved skills that required two like [Savage Dance] and sometimes even four skills.

Would it be better to choose [Compound Strike] and hope that the skill alone would be enough to combine with [Arcane Construct] and [Pure Compression]? Or would it be better to choose [Composite Mana] and still plan on combining the evolved version of [Mana Slash]?

At this point, he wanted to wait and see what he would get from [Mana Slash]. It was practically guaranteed that he would get offered [Mana Strike], but he was also curious what other skills would be offered if they would be better fits for what he had in mind.

Julius packed up his stuff and headed over to the cafeteria. He was excited to finally eat a real meal and see the others as well. Two weeks was a long time considering that they had only known each other for a short while. He hoped that they weren’t mad or treated him differently because of it.

Whenever he entered the cafeteria he found himself keeping a close eye on anyone that might cause him problems. There were particular people he always kept an eye on. Liam and his buddies were one of them. But there were also some upperclassmen who Julius caught looking at him a little too intently.

He didn’t know the exact reasons why they did, but he kept an eye on them just to be safe. If they headed in his direction, he would purposefully make sure to head off in the opposite direction to avoid them.

Luckily, his first day back was met with no troubles. No Liam or his cronies bothered him and he was able to get himself a plate of food without issues. He saw the others at their regular table and Lily like always was the first to spot him.

Her waving got the attention of the others and they all turned to look at him approaching the table. He saw Edgar scooch over a smidge, to allow Julius a space to sit next to him. He gratefully took it, placing his tray down on the table before sitting down.

He noticed that all of their eyes were focused on him intensely. Even Kyle was staring at him like he was trying to burn a hole through his forehead. It was funny in a way. They were so obviously curious but were also trying their best not to come off as too eager and give him some space.

Lily was pretending to focus on her food, but Julius could sense her reaching out trying to probe him subtly, it wasn’t something he would have been able to manage before, but seeing the way she used her psychic abilities so often had helped on that front.

Derek wasn’t using any of his aura or mana, but he was still frequently looking up at Julius, waiting for him to explain the situation to them. Edgar was just Edgar. He was the most unbothered out of all of them. He had given a friendly bump to him when Julius sat down and proceeded to finish his meal.

It wasn’t to anyone’s surprise that Aubrey was the one who couldn’t hold her tongue.

“Are we just not going to talk about it?” She asked impatiently.

“Talk about what?” Julius asked innocently with a smile.

“Oh don’t you even start you little brat,” she stood up and wagged her finger at Julius.


“The satellite should have already informed you that the City Lord and others have organized a rendezvous in the central plains.”

“It did?” Jake answered, staring up at it again, noticing it had stopped blinking.

“Through morse code.”

“I don’t know morse code?”

“Apologies for my assumption of competence,” Arnold acknowledged in the most insulting way Jake could imagine phrasing it, yet he felt not the slightest hint of intent to insult in his voice.

“Anyway, where do we meet exactly?” Jake asked. “Also, how has the Treasure Hunt treated you?”

“I have had adequate success in this event. To get to the central plains, simply head that way,” the drone said as it fired off a small beam of light towards the distance, “and spotting someone should be natural. However, be warned that there may be others in the path.”

“Got it, thanks, mate,” Jake answered as he turned and took off, waving to the drone as he took off.

It was difficult to explain how damn good it felt to run across the open plains and over the small hills after just being stuck in water or that small final room for so long. He felt faster than before but knew it was only marginal and due to his stat growth.

Jake ran without using One Step Mile to enjoy the wind on his face. He passed a few groups of people and soon made it to the top of a hill giving him a good look at the Mistless Plains. Looking in the direction where he felt Sylphie, he could faintly spot Miranda and Carmen with her. Sylphie sent back a mental greeting asking if she should come, but Jake declined and said he would come to her.

Just as he was about to head off, someone approached him. A man was flying through the air surrounded by odd energy, and when Jake got a closer look, he recognized it was his old colleague-turned-undead.

Casper landed in front of Jake elegantly, touching down elegantly before not-so-elegantly yelling: “So YOU have it!”

“Oh, hi Casper, nice to meet you too,” Jake said a bit snarkily. “Also, I have what?”

“A byproduct of the Seed of Eternal Resentment. You know what I mean, right? It can take many forms, including a small pebble-like seed, perhaps a large spore or a weapon forged of it or something,” Casper explained.

“Something like a Root also works?” Jake asked as he turned his wrist and made the Root of Eternal Resentment appear.

[Root of Yalsten’s Eternal Resentment (Unique)] – A wooden root from an unknown tree that has absorbed the curse energies of the black mist that has hung over Yalsten for unnumerable years. The deep and eternal resentment towards the vampires that permeates the curse has now been absorbed and concentrated. Will cause disastrous damage and curse any vampire it comes into contact with; however, it can only be used once. While in possession of this root, the cursed mist will not see you as an enemy. Be warned that while the curse will not seek to damage you, it will still influence you. This effect grows as it absorbs the curse energy of any cursed vessels related to the curse in Yalsten.

Casper stared at the black root in Jake’s hand before he slowly nodded, having clearly used Identify on it himself. “That’s the one. How much do you want for it?”

“Before I answer that, tell me first what you will use it for?”Jake countered. He did know Casper was into curses and stuff, so maybe he wanted to make a weapon out of it or something? Jake didn’t really wanna give it up as he had a strong feeling he could still find a use for it.

“I will use it to absorb the curse energy in the large spire and then against the final boss of the Treasure Hunt to weaken it,” Casper answered. “At least that is the official story I was supposed to give you. In actuality, we will use it on the spire to still absorb the curse, act like it has no other uses, and beat the final boss without it by using people like you and the Sword Saint. We will then bring the Root back to Earth, where we will use it as a power source in a ritual together with the World Quasi-Core we will get from this final stage. All to construct a special dungeon especially suited for us undead and inherently antagonistic to anything and anyone else.”

“Oh,” Jake said, taking it all in. “Sounds fancy. Do you absolutely need the Root?”

“Absolutely? No, but it would be very useful for us,” Casper answered.

“You know what, let me think about it, okay? If I don’t find a use for it, I doubt there will be much interest at the auction,” Jake answered. “Also, thanks for the tip. I didn’t even think about bonking the big spire.”

Casper just smiled as he shook his head. “I guess it’s about time to get the show started. Once the two of us move closer to the spire, the final phase of the Treasure Hunt will begin. You good with that?”

Jake quickly took a glance around, noticing a slew of familiar faces. He saw Jacob far off in the distance with Bertram beside him. The moment Jake looked at him, Jacob looked back. Jake felt the guy was using a skill to see that far but didn’t consider it more as he saw Jacob just give him a nod. Clearly, the Holy Church was ready. He then tossed a glance the way of the Noboru Clan, seeing the Sword Saint and Reika both stand ready, also fully aware of what was about to happen. In fact, Jake felt like he was the last to know. That did suck a bit.

“Let’s go,” Jake said as he summoned his wings. Casper followed him as they flew to the spire. Once they got within a certain distance… something shifted. Like the sound of a massive mirror being broken, the sky above shattered, and Jake’s eyes darted around as he felt the entire world change.

Casper was enveloped in light as an item appeared in his hand before swiftly disappearing into his Insignia, and at the same time, the system responded.

Quest Received: Cursed Monarch

The world of Yalsten has reached the end of its lifespan as the last anchors keeping it together have been removed. A foregone conclusion, as suppressing the curse would inadvertently lead to this fate anyway. Space will crumble as the world slowly turns to nothingness.

Yet, in this final moment, an ancient figure has awakened. The husk of the once glorious King of Blood who cursed the World of Yalsten, resurrected by his own creation, morphed and twisted by eons of pain and torture, his Records and existence morphed into something unrecognizable.

In his greed, this Cursed Monarch chose to be buried with not only his entire clan but a mighty treasure, one their world had been tasked with keeping safe by the True Ancestor – a treasure still untouched by the curse. The Cursed Monarch must be returned to the soil along with the soldiers he raised alongside himself to claim this treasure.

Objective: Defeat Cursed Monarch and his soldiers.

Final Rewards will be calculated after the Treasure Hunt concludes.

Warning: Due to the destruction of the world, the Treasure Hunt will end in: 11:59:59

Jake skimmed it as he made his way to the massive spire. He bonked the Root into the crystal spire without any hesitation, making it shatter just like the sky above. It turned to crystalline dust the moment the Root touched it, and Jake felt the curse in the Root of Eternal Resentment amplify to extreme levels as it absorbed far more than anything prior. The intent and emotions of the curse invaded his mind as this happened, assaulting every inch of his being. Gritting his teeth, he channeled his Pride and suppressed the desire to slay the vampire he knew dwelled beneath and was about to awaken, getting himself fully under control. No fucking way he was going to let a stupid ancient curse able to destroy an entire world ruin a good fight.

He tossed the Root back in the Hunter Insignia as he flew over to Miranda and the others, the crystal spire slowly turning to nothing behind him. He had barely landed and given them a friendly nod before another message appeared before him and everyone else.


One would think it was a danger that it would encounter other flying creatures during its flight, but the risk was actually quite low. Most of the birds tended to stay lower as they hunted the cloud elementals on the continent below. A few did note the shadow of the arrow passing over them, but as it wasn’t an attack aimed for them, they ignored it.

Jake had already begun creating another Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter. With his eyes closed as he focused, he didn’t even look if the arrow would hit its target.

He would know if it did… and if it didn’t, he would just have to try again.

The seconds ticked by as he channeled summoning the arrow. It slowly began emerging from his palm, suspended above it by the skill.

10…11…13

34… 35…

59… a minute passed, and nothing yet.

63… 64…

He felt the arrow about to be fully summoned as he opened his eyes. The first thing he did was to throw his gaze towards the Storm Elemental… and just in time.

From above, a giant arrow fell. It looked only like a small needle as it impacted the massive Storm Elemental that had just been mindings its own business at the lightning tree.

Destructive energy invaded the elemental as Jake felt it through his Mark. Like a wave, it tore through the massive form, and Jake was certain that it was making loud booming noises based on the many small forms of panicking birds and elementals he saw.

But… Jake didn’t have time to look. He once more drenched the now-finished arrow in his blood as he nocked it and once more began charging Infused Powershot.

BOOM!

Once more, the cloud island he was on shook, and he felt a lot of it be blown apart… he would have to find another one soon as this one would disperse entirely in only a few shots.

Another Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter flying in a great arc towards the horizon as he consumed a mana potion and began making yet another.

A bit more than a minute later it landed, this one missing the massive elemental by nearly 100 meters. It sounded like a lot, but with the gigantic shooting distance, it really wasn’t. The Storm Elemental had moved slightly in the direction he had shot from, but after finding nothing, it was already making its way back again to the tree.

So he shot again.

BOOM!

This one flew in another great arc, tearing through the sky. The wind gave way as the Windsoar enchantment that gave his bow its name truly proved its worth. With wind resistance non-existent, his arrow didn’t lose much momentum as it flew; the only thing working to slow it down was the energy from the Infused Powershot running out.

Perhaps there was something poetically ironic about using a bow blessed by elementals to get revenge on someone slaying elementals… to slaughter even more elementals. Cloud and wind were even closely related…

The third arrow descended like a great artillery strike, hitting true as once more the massive Storm Elemental was invaded with destruction incarnate. It writhed in pain as it tried to locate its attacker but failed.

Its intelligence was non-existent like the Cloud Elementals. It moved only on instincts and refused to leave the giant lighting tree… it was just a sitting duck, never going more than a few kilometers away from it. Well, Jake would call its instincts pathetic, but he wasn’t the best to ask.

BOOM!

A fourth arrow was released, and this one also flew true. The cloud island below him couldn’t take a single shot more before being completely dispersed… but he only had mana for a single arrow more, so that was fine.

Ten thousand mana, uplifted to nearly fifteen thousand with the potion, was consumed with five arrows. Jake’s stamina was also down to a third, the constant strain of Limit Break at 20% and, of course, the investment in the arrows. This meant that each summoning had drained nearly 3000 mana and more than 750 stamina.

A few remnants of the massive roars of the Storm Elemental even made their way towards him, barely audible in the distance. He couldn’t help but chuckle, thinking of the beasts below the island and the birds flying on it, all scared absolutely shitless.

BOOM!

The fifth and final arrow was released, the cloud island below him now wholly blown apart. He quickly made his way to another nearby small island as he settled down on it. He deactivated Limit Break as he began breathing heavily from the exhaustion.

He had just entered meditation as he felt the fifth arrow hit.

56 minutes later, he opened his eyes and consumed a mana potion, and then reentered meditation immediately again.

An hour after that, he chugged down a stamina potion before continuing his meditation.

This continued for 6 hours total – 3 stamina and 3 mana potions – before he opened his eyes for another shooting session.

He gazed towards the distance and saw his target still at the lightning tree. It was less damaged than six hours ago… but far from healed. All signs of toxicity from his blood were long gone, but it didn’t have enough time to regenerate fully.

Its internal thunder was slightly muted… and as the saying goes, one must smith when the iron is hot.

2 minutes and 49 seconds later…

BOOM!

Another arrow rained down on the poor Storm Elemental. It wasn’t smart enough to understand how screwed it was, but even with its primitive instincts, it had been happy to be left alone for the last half a dozen hours.

BOOM!

Then a seventh came, tearing away at it even more. Its massive right arm seemed to lose its form for a moment before the elemental reformed it.

BOOM!

The eighth arrow hit it in its mid-section, and a massive portion of its body was consumed for a moment, with the Storm Elemental once more expending considerable resources to heal itself.

BOOM!

Arrow number nine missed by less than five meters to the right of the massive stationary form. Can’t be perfect every time, Jake chuckled, already preparing the tenth arrow.

BOOM!

The tenth hit, meaning eight total hits by Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter. The Elemental truly looked to be spent, so Jake did the only natural thing.

He went through another round of recuperation on yet another small cloud island.

A bit over twelve hours after the first arrow arrived, the barrage continued.

BOOM!

The eleventh arrow blew apart the right arm once more, but this time it didn’t regenerate it right away.

BOOM!

The twelfth arrow blew apart the other massive arm, one it also failed to regenerate.

BOOM!

The thirteenth arrow hit it right in the chest-section, blowing out a massive part of its body. The destructive wave tore through it, as the lighting that ran through it was practically non-existent now. It tried to regenerate the destroyed part of its chest, but it appeared to have difficulty maintaining its form.

BOOM!

Fourteen. Twelve of which that hit. That was how many Arrows of the Ambitious Hunter were required to kill the D-grade elemental.

*You have slain [Storm Elemental – lvl 107] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level*

*’DING!’ Class: [Ambitious Hunter] has reached level 94 - Stat points allocated, +4 free points*

*’DING!’ Class: [Ambitious Hunter] has reached level 95 - Stat points allocated, +4 free points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (E)] has reached level 83 - Stat points allocated, +5 free points*

Jake basked in the levels but noticed there was one notification he had missed. It came the moment he killed the Elemental and was honestly one he hadn’t expected.

*Skill Upgraded*: [Expert Archery (Uncommon)] --> [Archery of Vast Horizons (Rare)]

162 chapter - Pecking Order

Jake looked at the upgraded skill with a bit of bewilderment.

[Expert Archery (Uncommon)] An Archer’s best friend is the bow in his hand and the arrow in his foe’s heart. You have proven yourself an expert with your chosen weapon and is fast approaching the level of mastering your craft. Adds a small bonus to the effect of Agility and Strength when using a ranged weapon.

-->


An aura blasted out of his body as Shroud of the Primordial entirely fell away, and he purposefully amplified his presence. It spread out of him… and less than a second later, the giant double doors slammed open, someone inside having felt Jake.

Felt his presence.

A priest flanked by two paladins appeared, standing at the top of the steps only a few seconds later, staring down at Jake and the three with him in confusion.

[Starcross Priest – lvl 280]

[Starcross Paladin – lvl 285]

[Starcross Paladin – lvl 282]

“I… who are yo-“

“Call your god down here,” Jake interrupted the guy.

“What?” the priest said, looking confused before suddenly turning angry. “How dare yo-“

“I wasn’t asking,” Jake said as he flared his aura even more, mixing in Pride of the Malefic Viper to further amplify it.

“And unless you want to create trouble for the Starcross Pantheon by ignoring the Chosen of a Primordial, I would very much comply,” the Sword Saint added in, also tossing in a bit of his own aura as someone with a Divine Blessing from another Primordial.

Dina and Sylphie also joined in as the priest stared, clearly unsure how to react. The two paladins moved forward in a defensive manner as Jake just sighed.

Very well… full Young Master mode engaged.

“I gave you a fucking order, so stop standing there like a moron and contact your god,” Jake scroffed. “Or are you some damn heretic? Is that why this pathetic kingdom has fallen into shambles?”

Jake wasn’t sure what more he could say as they discovered that the priest had indeed contacted someone. An aura appeared toward the back of the large church, and a second later, a figure teleported out to stand between Jake and the priest. Instantly Jake was aware… A-grade.

But, he was in young master mode.

“What is going on he-“

“Fucking finally,” Jake sighed loudly. “Hey, you, are you as useless as this priest, or can you get your shit together and contact that Pantheon of yours already? I haven’t got all day.”

The A-grade looked at him and the four with him for a moment before suddenly falling to his knees. “I greet the Chosen.”

Alright, seems like we are getting somewhere.

“Yeah, yeah, just contact the Pantheon. I would prefer to converse with someone possessing a worthy status.”

“Naturally,” the A-grade said as he put his hands together. His body glowed with divine light for a moment before he stood, still keeping his back bowed. “They will arrive shortly. I apologize for the disrespect and will make sure to right any injustices.”

The priest and paladins looked pretty damn frightened by now, but before they could do anything, the A-grade pointed at them as a beam shot into them, making them freeze and fall to the ground. “I shall remove these heretics from your sight at once.”

Jake thought he was overdoing it a little… but he was in young master mode. Still, he felt bad if they got punished for something he did.

“You only got yourself to blame for «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» not properly teaching your clergy about proper procedures if they should ever meet the Chosen of a Primordial,” Jake scoffed. “Now begone. You have done as I asked and you are no longer of any use or concern.”

The A-grade didn’t even speak but bowed deeply once more before teleported away with the priest and paladins.

“That went well?” the Sword Saint asked through the mark.

“I think so, let’s just ho-“

Before Jake could even answer, a presence washed over the entire town. It utterly suppressed anything, and Jake felt everything warp. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a flickering torch suddenly slow down its flickering as it stopped entirely. The feeling reminded him of the Tutorial when Eversmile stopped time… because that is exactly what had happened.

Two figures appeared in the air, floating above them. It was a man and a woman, both with blueish skin and eyes reminding Jake of a starlit sky. They looked nearly identical, except for the difference in gender, though both were rather androgynous.

“What era are we in?” the male god asked as his eyes landed on Jake. “The Chosen of the Malefic Viper… never did I think I would see the day a new one would appear.”

“Ninety-third era,” Jake answered. “Not long since the integration, considering I am a Progenitor along with being a Chosen.”

“Truly? How surprising, but not a thoroughly unpleasant piece of news,” the male god nodded.

“Quite the party, too,” the woman spoke. “A Unique Lifeform, a relative of the Nature’s Attendant, and two individuals carrying the Divine Blessings of Stormild and Aeon.”

“The one blessed by Aeon is also a Transcendent,” the male god smiled.

“Oh my,” the female god said in an impressed tone.

Both gods had floated down by now and landed in front of Jake and the others. Once more, the Sword Saint, Dina, and Fallen King felt the pressure, while Jake stood unaffected, Sylphie perched on his shoulder unbothered.

“Entirely immune to the auras of gods?” the male god said, looking even more at Jake. “I am curious, but asking wouldn’t do me any good.”

“Yeah, images in Nevermore and all that,” Jake nodded.

“Indeed it is so,” the god smiled. “I am glad to see that the Malefic One has returned to the multiverse, and you must give him our greetings once you are done in Nevermore. Just say the Starcrossed Twins send their regards.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Jake nodded. Yeah, not gonna lie; chances are he was going to forget that.

“Now, let’s get on with why we are here. This floor was made to teach the masses to respect divine authority, and… hm, there is no need to explain, now is there? As the Chosen, you are a living symbol of a Primordial's divine authority,” the female god began before giggling. “We shall not hold you more. Ah, but do take this.”

She tossed a small coin to Jake, which he instantly caught.

“If you ever feel like visiting the Starcross Pantheon’s territory in the true multiverse, you would be more than welcome, and that token should help you,” she said with a smile. “Now, let’s get this silly barrier down.”

She reached out and took the hand of the male god as both glowed with starlight for a second. She then let go and looked at Jake and the others. “We wish you godspeed on your continued descent of Nevermore.”

“Thanks. From all of us,” Jake smiled as he looked at Dina, who took out the teleportation token.

Floor forty-five?

Easiest floor of his life.

733 chapter - Nevermore: Definitely Balanced

“Okay, not gonna lie, that was kind of hilarious,” Minaga chuckled after seeing Jake pass floor forty-five so easily. “Really just tossed his weight around and got all those poor suckers to get him out of there right away. They didn’t show it, but those Starcrossed Twins were pretty damn submissive compared to how they usually are.”

“I am surprised you got those two in here for such a floor,” Vilastromoz said with genuine confusion. “Any god would do, so why have two gods as old and powerful as them? That can’t have been easy.”

The Wyrmgod was silent as he just sighed. “I had my reasons.”

Minaga raised a hand. “I know the reasons.”

Vilastromoz smiled and looked at the Wyrmgod, who reluctantly explained. “The origin of the images of mortals don’t truly matter that much as before any of them are ever used, the mortal will more than likely already be dead. Things are different for gods. While nothing that happens to the image affects them, and they never become aware of any interactions these images had, there can still be consequences. For the gods, that is.”

The Viper suddenly understood as he nodded while the Wyrmgod kept explaining. A bit needlessly, but the old dragon did like to talk about his work when given the chance.