Watching a mythical —yet innocently sexy— angel blush as I flirted with her was a unique pleasure, especially considering the said angel was the legendary headmistress of Silver Spires. I would have loved to spend the next half an hour teasing her.
Pity that her expression soon recovered into a smooth calm, showing the benefits of her centuries of experience.
“About the alliance,” she spoke with an inflectionless voice, without the slightest stirring of emotion. However, that actually entertained me more, because that specific way of speaking was very familiar to me. Titania had been speaking like that before I had suppressed the emotional suppression from her ability.
The difference, it seemed, our resident angel could clearly use that as she wished rather than constantly staying under it.
“I can’t speak for the rest of my organization, but we’re not a close-knit group in the first place,” I explained. “As long as we continue to fight against the destruction of the society, we’re free to work with other groups,” I said, basically selling her the opportunity to eventually pulling the rest of my group into her alliance despite poaching one of their members. It was a tight rope to walk, but hopefully, she was desperate enough to grab the opportunity despite the slight inconsistencies in my story.
She said nothing for a while, lost in her thoughts, before she finally spoke. “I need to examine your power in detail,” she suddenly said as she raised her hand, not even asking for my permission as her mana invaded my body.
I could have fought back. While her mana was potent and her control was strong, I wasn’t exactly a weakling. But why would I, when I could use my focus to reinforce my fake soul space, including the dummy Companion Node that I created based on the mark my power had left on the girls?
I had put a Companion Node despite the risk of making her more suspicious, because I had no doubt that, eventually, she would either check Titania or start spying on the girls around me. Either way, she would discover the Companion Node, and through that, my involvement. With that, I would at least have an excuse. So, as her mana explored my fake soul space, I put my whole attention on maintaining the facade… While I considered the opportunity to push back and explore her soul space, but after sending a couple of mana strings, I failed to discover even the general location of her soul space, so I pulled back.
Then, she pulled her mana back without a warning!
I stiffened, fearing that she had discovered the fake, and decided to act. The last thing I expected was her to pull back with a disgusted expression before speaking. “You carry the mark of the Degenerate.”
I didn’t need to fake the expression of surprise on my face. When she pulled back like that, the last thing I had been expecting was an insult. “I’m carrying the mark of what, now?” I asked.
She explored my face for a moment, like trying to assess whether my expression was fake or real. “You don’t know the source of your extra power?” she asked.
“Hey, I think we have already mentioned the limited historical information my organization carries,” I said. Combining with her earlier explanations about the history of the world, it wasn’t hard to guess the Degenerate was a historical figure. “What exactly is this Degenerate, and how does it links to my abilities?”
“It’s about the rest of the explanation,” she said, her tone once again attaining her earlier calmness. “We were talking about how the Eternals was using the remains of the Divine Avatars as a weapon.”
“Yeah, and I’m assuming that’s significant,” I said.
“Very,” she said. “In their own domains, every god is essentially untouchable,” she murmured, though a twitch in her face as she said so made me suspicious about the accuracy of that particular detail. My instincts were telling me that she was hiding something about that, but it wasn’t time to push her about it, so I let her continue. “However, to affect the material world, every Divine being needed to use their own essence, their Spark, to create a body for themselves.”
“And therefore making them vulnerable,” I commented, and she nodded.
“Yes, and not only that, losing the avatar is no simple matter. Depending on the power they had invested in their avatar, the consequences of losing the avatar ranged from a slight inconvenience to injuries that would take centuries to heal,” she explained seriously. “And that’s assuming they could recover their essence.”
“And with the Eternals weaponizing that essence, I’m guessing that things had changed quite a bit…”
“Yes, it did,” she murmured, the slight trembling in her tone despite her best attempts making me doubt that whether she had just read that in a history book, or had a more direct knowledge… Maybe even living through it… “It wasn’t something Gods had expected to work so well, so the initial attempts to punish them was limited to sending a few lower-level battle gods and loyal demigods. No one expected them to actually succeed in using the Divine Spark in a few months, so the attempts to punish them only strengthened them.”
“Still, the gods seemed to have such a strong advantage, how did they lost, assuming they have lost of course,” I added, though considering their absence, their loss was a given.
“At that point, the Eternals counter-attacked,” she explained. “Many gods had their avatars across dimensions, especially the weaker gods trying to establish their power bases, not to mention hundreds of demigods and an untold number of Divine-touched serving as priests and servants for the gods. No one expected the Eternals to hunt them aggressively. Before the gods' counter-attack, many minor gods’ avatars had been slain and their divine essence pilfered, weakening them significantly.”
“How about the normal humans?” I asked. “I’m sure the gods and divine-touched were really strong, but I don’t want to believe that a group of high-leveled mage couldn’t actually counter at least some of it.”
“That’s the crux of the issue,” she sighed. “During the war, there was no system.” My eyes widened at her words. No matter what, it was hard to imagine a world without the system. Then, she said something even more interesting. “At least, during the first half of the war,” she added.
“Gods or the Eternals?” I asked.
“The Eternals, of course,” she said. “At first, the gods made their plans with the assumption that absorbing the Divine Spark of the gods was a difficult and time-consuming ritual, requiring impossible-to-replicate high-quality materials to initiate. It was too late when they had realized the Eternals had developed a special way of absorbing the Divine Spark from the slain Avatars, and that they were strengthening it as the war continued.”
“And that ultimately become the System?” I asked, frowning as I asked. The artificial nature of the System was surprising, but if that was true, it left the question of why the world wasn’t being ruled by the Eternals. I had examined the soul space of the assassins, and they certainly didn’t feel like created by someone with a good handle on their abilities.
“Not until the end of the war,” the headmistress said, her wings twitching. “There’s not much known about the actual war, only that at one point it was so heated that continents shattered and new mountains created while the old ones turned to dust. But I know that after the years of warfare, the gods were on the losing end.”
“Isn’t it weird,” I asked. “I can understand that the system is a game-changer, but I expected the gods to be stronger.”
“Certainly,” the headmistress said. “Unfortunately, after their counter-attack, the Eternals had gathered just enough to Divine Spark to activate the most decisive feature of the System, and the System started absorbing Divine Energy from the material plane. The established avatars were strong enough to resist the pull, but the effect was strong enough to prevent the other gods from descending into the material plane. Before the gods could realize that, many attempted avatar had been absorbed, their powers stolen.”
“However, it was only when the remaining gods and demigods had launched a desperate attack after discovering the to the headquarters of the Eternals, damaging the heart of the ritual that maintained the system.”
“And I’m guessing that it didn’t destroy them completely,” I commented.
“No, but it destroyed their ability to control the system. Instead, it started running chaotically, empowering both the animals and the people in a completely random manner, pushing the continent to chaos even worse than before. And since the absorption effect continued, no gods can come down to fix it. The only hope for the survival of the world that before it was too late, we need to discover the location of the system, and destroy it, once again allowing the gods to descend and fix the world.”
“Such a noble cause,” I said, doing my best to sound enthusiastic about the return of a bunch of uber-powerful beings with a nebulous range of personal attitudes, and probably a grudge after being kicked out of the material plane for hundreds of years. However, there was no benefit in saying that to an angel who clearly belonged to the team of one of those gods. Instead, I chose to distract her. “And who is this Degenerate you have mentioned, and how does it links to my own status.”
“She was one of the minor demonic goddesses,” she said with an obvious distaste, surprising me with the details. I wasn’t surprised to hear a possible divine link between my own unique System and a possible Divine entity. Nor I was entirely surprised by the nature of it being called demonic by an angel, as their fame for purity would no doubt classify the sexual nature of my powers as demonic even though it clearly helped both parties —at least in my case.
However, the fact that it was linked to a goddess instead of a god surprised me.
“And does she have anything to do with the war?” I asked, curious about her distaste.
“Not to my knowledge, no,” the headmistress said with a dismissive attitude. “She was cowardly enough to disappear before the war, one of the first Divine to do so, not that she would have been a big help even if she had been around,” she continued, though I was interested to note a hint of jealousy in her tone along with dismissal, both too sharp to be anything but personal.
How interesting, I thought. Apparently, the —possible— source of my powers had a history with my headmistress. What a small world…
“So, how about the power-up,” I asked her. “Are we still going to do that, because a war is coming, and I won’t say no to some extra power?”
“It’s not a free power gift,” the headmistress immediately countered. “I’m going to mark you as the one of the Divine-touched, one carrying the power of a proper goddess rather than a useless wallflower, and in return, you are going to become a hero that would fight against the darkness. It’s not a game.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” I said, not bothering to act too submissive. After all, she needed me more than I needed her, at least in her mind, which gave me an opportunity to show a touch of arrogance. “So, when are we going to do that?”
“Tomorrow, at the first light of dawn,” she said even as she magically opened her door. “Now, go, I need to prepare.”
I left the room, my mind already churning about the interesting history lesson I had just received…
[Level: 30 Experience: 447193 / 465000
Strength: 41 Charisma: 53
Precision: 35 Perception: 37
Agility: 35 Manipulation: 40
Speed: 34 Intelligence: 44
Endurance: 34 Wisdom: 46
HP: 5370 / 5370 Mana: 6600 / 6600 ]
SKILLS
Master Melee [100/100]
Master Tantric [100/100]
Master Biomancy [100/100]
Master Elemental [100/100]
Master Arcana [100/100]
Master Subterfuge [97/100]
Expert Speech [70/75]
Advanced Craft [50/50]
PERKS
Mana Regeneration
Skill Share
Empowerment (1/1)
Teleportation
COMPANIONS
[Cornelia - Level 21/25]
[Helga - Level 17/21]
