Chapter 321

Ironically, for all its defenses, finding and sneaking into the hidden base of the corrupted angel had been even easier than I had expected. He was trying to take control of his out-of-control Divine Spark, which allowed me to discover him rather easily through the temporary connection I had triggered.

His base was hidden much better, but by tracking his location, that was removed.

And, once that was gone, the other defenses had been even easier to bypass. "Fascinating," I said even as I walked around. He had no guards, no doubt afraid of betrayal in his vulnerable state, but it left him even more vulnerable.

It was a treasure trove. There were several rooms filled with familiar-looking crystals, glowing with Divine Spark, along with Eternal Gems, weapons ... and most importantly, an incredible amount of books.

There were many different types of Divine Sparks. Some, I recognized easily, like Necrotic, Forging, Light, and Nature — though Necrotic was definitely the most common one. Others, I never interacted interacted before, but recognizing was easy enough. Arcana, Swordsmanship, Elemental, and many other skills. I didn't know how exactly Swordsmanship and other melee abilities interacted with Divine Spark, but I didn't bother exploring that point, and just brought several samples from each of them.

And turned the rest into Purified Spark — except the elemental ones that felt significantly different. There were only Water ones available.

[+8,183,190 Purified Spark]

The Eternals were even richer than I had initially thought if that was the amount someone could steal successfully from their vault.

No wonder they had been treating Gods as some kind of weapon for their purpose. Even though they were split into pieces and therefore not as valuable, there were still enough Sparks to create multiple gods. It was not a joke.

Then, I moved to the center room, which was a giant version of the crystal structures that Mariel had used to suppress her own sparks.

I sneaked forward, and pressed my hand to his head, draining all Divine Spark from him. It killed him directly, not even letting him have a chance to speak, but I didn't want to risk if he had some kind of trigger that could communicate with his allies. Divine Spark still had too many secrets, and I didn't want to test myself against a being that had been experimenting on it for centuries.

An ignoble end to a dangerous enemy ... but that was how assassination worked. All the effort that went to months of acting, fake displays, and baits, all to force my enemy to reveal his hand without making him realize he was being targeted.

Technically, I could have tried to create a foolproof containment area, but the amount of time I needed to spend to make such a prison foolproof was too long. And, neither Helga nor Oeyne had the ability to contain if he actually escaped or called reinforcement.

With that, I sealed his unique brand of Darkness and Light mana. I doubted that I would be able to control it, and I certainly didn't want to any of the girls to use such a dangerous tool, but it could be still weaponized as a devastating bomb.

"Now, let's remove the evidence," I said, and set up several wards filled with Darkness and Light mana, ready to go off the moment someone breached the place. I wanted him to look like he died in the explosion if the Eternals managed to discover his location.

Once that was done, I teleported back to Silver Spires.

Or, more accurately, Helga's domain under Silver Spires.

She was at the center of the room, carefully analyzing the small, isolated blue fragment at the center of the room. "Any development?" I asked.

"Nothing much," Helga answered. She wasn't surprised by my presence, but only because we were in her domain, and hiding anything from her would take an incredible effort. "I can say that it's definitely not Divine Spark in any shape or form. It's not unfair to say that it's the opposite, even."

"In what way?" I asked.

"In many ways, Divine Spark is a unique, concentrated imprint of soul that somehow overlaps with a mysterious energy that fills the universe, and creates a sense of higher order," Helga said. I nodded rather than arguing. It was just a theory for the moment, and she had no evidence to support the existence of that mysterious energy. It was not the time to lose ourselves in a pointless battle.

"What we have here is essentially the reverse of it. It mixed with the Primordial Aether, and turned into a lower-order, chaotic existence."

"Elementals," I said.

"Very likely linked, but not completely the same. If this new energy is Primordial Aether, Elementals are the equivalent of Aether," she answered.

"How about Titania?" I asked.

"From everything I checked, it looks impossible to just cut the infection from Titania. It infused into her soul for too long, and added that chaotic aspect to it. I have no way to remove it, and you can't just break it down either."

I nodded. After all, I had already tried that with a sample, and it was ... explosive.

"That means we need to study more," I said as I revealed the books and the other samples I had brought to her, and her smile widened.

"It's the best gift ever," she said as she kissed me quickly before she moved to the books, her expression even more elated than the time I had actually raised her to Divinity. I wanted to bend her over the books to properly celebrate.

Pity that we were facing an emergency.

As we read, our frowns got bigger and bigger. "This is the fifth reference I caught to about other universes," she said with a frown.

"I noticed several as well," I said. "And, I'm starting to think that the potential they the text repeatedly mentions is the Primordial Aether more than anything. It looks like we identified how the first gods arrived here ... from another universe."

"It looks that way," Helga said, and I didn't blame her for shivering in fear. We were likely looking at the most honest historical notes, drawn by the personal anecdotes spread across magical notes, and several hand-written conclusions. "Also, there are mentions of a previous rebellion that allowed the gods to cut a dimension from the main one."

"Likely ours," I said. She nodded, agreeing with my conclusion. "Pity there's very little about the Eternal Rebellion, "I said. "Other than the Eternal's repeated inability to create a second System, and all the conjecture related to it."

"I don't like the number of notes about trying to find the other universes," I added. Luckily, they were all mentioned along with failure, but who could know how it would go.

"No going to another universe," Helga immediately said.

"Oh, I wouldn't even think about it," I said, shuddering. Jumping between planes had been enough of an adventure for me. I wouldn't have even bothered with the Eternals, but by achieving something they failed to achieve, I had already turned myself into a target. Only by Strength, I could protect myself against them.

Of course, that also raised some questions about where my first System came from, but I didn't have the time to explore it.

Instead, I continued reading, slowly creating a more reliable account of the history of our universe. The first gods came from another universe. Though, at least, when they arrived, they seemed to barely step into the Chosen stage — or at least, their equivalent of it — and reached the Divinity stage here.

It was good, as the idea of older, stronger Universes was scary enough. The idea of it was strong enough that even actual gods abandoning it just for a chance to improve would have been too much.

There were some references to actually establishing the material plane, but very little about how that feat had been achieved.

Then, at one point, the Eternals established the System, based on the information from a traitor ... but once again, no real detail about her identity, just enough to confirm that she was a woman.

"At least it confirms my theory," Helga said, though her tone was listless. "There are quite a bit notes about theories about another energy they can't detect, and how it makes Divine Spark gather far faster. They claim that it's some kind of energy based on the creation stages of the universe."

"Creation, and destruction," I corrected her as I confirmed through the other notes. "It doesn't exactly fill me with great confidence about what would happen if they discover us."

"True, it doesn't," Helga said, but once we finished reading, there was no immediate answer. There had been a lot of books, but the information they had was limited, and not entirely trustworthy.

"You should continue reading," I said. "It looks like I'm going to visit the Eternal City."

{Strength: 115 Charisma: 115

Precision: 115 Perception: 124

Agility: 115 Manipulation: 122

Speed: 115 Intelligence: 151

Endurance: 168 Wisdom: 122}

{Purified Divine Spark: 9.330,787}

{ADDITIONAL SPARKS

Twilight - Chosen 30

Nature - Chosen 10

Knowledge - Chosen 10}

{GODDESSES

Elven Goddess

Goddess of Knowledge

Twilight Archangel

Goddess of the Forge}