Chapter 324
Annoyance and relief battled in me as I watched Marianne attack the undead with a confidence that shocked me.
As she raised her hand, modified life magic radiated, countering and destroying the necrotic energy it touched, even more effective than my own modified light-life attack. She wore shiny armor, and her blonde hair danced in a way that made my blood move faster. She looked good.
More importantly, I could see her domain trying to establish itself, showing that her absence had been productive. I would have been surprised, but the timing of her attack made it obvious that it was the mysterious actor behind my unique System that helped her. Otherwise, there was no chance she could absorb her unique Divinity in such a short time.
Just not as strong as she would have developed with my help.
Seeing her alive and thriving was a beautiful surprise, but most of the relief was negated by the inconvenient presence of her attack. I could see her rushing into the endless undead army recklessly, which put her in a perilous position.
Her presence ruined my plan to slowly sneak in and find the center while Helga worked to discover the core of the System. I couldn't just abandon her to certain death. I could see avatars of eight undead gods closing in, accompanied by the real body of one, ready to surround her, hidden away from her detection.
I pulled the darkness around me tighter to stay hidden as I rushed forward, glad for the recent acquisition of Air Spark, which helped me to enhance my speed even further. First, I needed to break her from the trap before they took action.
There was one thing to my advantage. Once detected, an ambush was more of a danger to the undead. In an effort to keep their ambush hidden from Marianne, none of them had started pushing their domain. Admittedly, it was not a bad strategy. If it wasn't for my most recent improvement in Perception, along with my magic expertise, I would have missed their presence in the undead mass.
Unfortunately — for them — the battlefield was an unforgiving place. Without the domain, they were vulnerable, and with their focus on Marianne, the sole god with his real body — a lich wearing some kind of crown — noticed my presence only when I put my hand on his skull.
Too late.
He tried to establish his domain, but I flooded his body with enough of my unique brand of mana to break down his Divine Spark.
Unfortunately, even when ambushed, taking down an actual god took some time and most of my attention. I couldn't succeed if the other eight avatars attacked me at the same time.
"Marianne, now, attack with your full power," I shouted even as I stretched my mana. She looked at me, shocked, but quick to recognize me once my mana touched her, and a connection bloomed between us, using the remnant old connection from the System.
She could have easily broken that connection as a Divine Being, but instead, she strengthened it, her face blooming with a big smile as she recognized me despite my disguise. And, I used that to block the other connection she had with the System before the mysterious connection could catch onto it.
Another task that was only possible because of her trust. It would have been an impossible task if she tried to defend that connection with the System.
I didn't snap the connection completely, but let it carry a bunch of fake information. At the same time, I used our connection to send an incredible amount of mana toward her. Not just pure mana, but most of my Pseudo-HP I stored.
"Thanks, honey," she said as the mana flooded her, which she channeled into her domain. Pseudo-HP was even easier for her to convert to an attack with her own unique brand of Divine Spark. A glow covered the battlefield, targeting eight avatars at the same time, forcing them to deploy their own domains defensively.
And, gave me the time to drain the undead god that was supposed to be resurrected infinitely.
[+6,291,192 Purified Spark]
"Excellent work, my love," I said even as I dumped all of it into my stats, improving myself even further. The exponential nature of the growth weakened the potential of the improvement somewhat, but every bit counted.
[+20 All Stats]
[-5,820,700 Purified Spark]
"My pleasure," Marianne said as she continued to attack the avatars, preventing them from establishing their domains, and looking amazing while she did so. And, without their domains, they were even weaker to my attacks.
In the process, I created several large crystals glowing with an ominous dark purple color, making it look like I was capturing their Spark rather than devouring them wholesale. It was one secret I had no intention to reveal, even when my power was increasing greatly.
[+3,248,300 Purified Spark]
[+10 All Stats]
[-3,441,850 Purified Spark]
"I'm so glad you're alive, my love," Marianne said after we dealt with enough undead to give her a chance to establish her domain.
"Me too, but what are you doing here?" I asked.
"We're trying to help Cornelia," she said proudly.
"What's wrong with her?" I asked.
"She's having some complications with her Divine Spark, and the solution is here," Marianne explained. "So, when the System alerted us to the possibility, we decided to act ..." she said. Just as she spoke, the defensive barrier of the city trembled, as one of the corners of the defensive barriers shattered.
The corner that was being held by the Fire Elemental.
"That's what'll help Cornelia, right?" I asked even with a sinking feeling. It was clearly a trap, but once again, I was slower to react. Another step in the System's plan, one that forced me to avoid the mess even more. "Who's we?" I asked.
"Aviada, of course," Marianne answered. "She's the one that helped us escape from the main material plane."
"Very good," I said as I looked around, watching as the eternal army tried to react to the sudden changes in the battlefield, trying to adapt to intensifying elemental attacks. Fire elementals, in particular, were having a far easier time penetrating. "I need to continue distracting them while I go and help Cordelia," I said, and cast a spell.
It was a beacon, one that contacted Seldanna and Mariel, summoning their avatars to my side. At my right, light started to gather to form a winged being, shadows creating accents. At my right, flowers bloomed, quickly gathering into a humanoid figure.
I used a lot of mana to help them summon their avatars, but even then, it was a slow process. I just reduced it to a minute rather than hours.
"What's going on —" Marianne said as she looked at the two gathering avatars, surprised, but before she could say anything else, I took a step forward, kissing her. She was quick to respond, and used the proximity to flood her soul with my mana, helping her to bond with her Divine Spark better.
Thankfully, our emotional closeness meant that Marianne accepted that without asking any question rather than resisting and slowing down the process. My increased stats made the process even stronger.
However, as I felt Marianne's lips over mine, I care less about that. Instead, I raised a shadow barrier to block us from the view, and pressed her armor. It had an automatic removal spell, which required a unique spell to trigger, which worked as a lock.
Armor fell, revealing her beautiful body wearing just a corset, which I pulled down to grab her beautiful breasts. "I missed those," I said even as I squeezed them, making her moan. Not seemingly appropriate in the midst of a battle, but the pleasure made her soul even more malleable to my intervention, quickening the process of her power up.
However, the similarities between her Divine Spark and Mariel's played quite a role in the speed of my achievement as well. Otherwise, even with my advantages, I couldn't squeeze the process into a minute.
I played with her body, not because of the pleasure it granted me — well, not only that, at least, as I truly missed my curvy healer — but because I needed every help I could find.
Luckily, it was something I enjoyed immensely.
"And I missed your massages," she moaned as I twisted her nipples. "But why is my Domain getting far stronger."
"A gift, of course," I said as I pulled back, and put the armor back on. She looked disappointed. Frankly, I was as well, but there were more urgent things we had to deal with. And, now that our connection recovered once more, I was not afraid of not finding her once more.
The magical block that was keeping us hidden from the battlefield fell, and Marianne came face to face with Mariel and Seldanna. "H-headmistress," Marianne gasped.
Mariel's smirk was visible even under the circumstances. "Marianne, this is Seldanna," I said as I pointed at the flower avatar.
"A - a pleasure," Marianne said, still looking surprised.
"Your powers combine perfectly to deal with the undead. I want you three to cut through the undead army and in general be a nuisance, but stay at the edge," I said, ignoring my desire to introduce the three in a far more familiar manner. Unfortunately, Cornelia's situation was too dangerous to be delayed, so I had to leave that for the future.
"But, we need to march at the center to save Cornelia—" Marianne started, but I cut her argument off with a gesture.
"No, I'll handle that, I promise," I said. She looked unwilling, but she still nodded, trusting me to handle it.
I was glad for that, because controlling a rebellious goddess would have been a very troubling challenge.
With that, I departed. I had an angry goddess of fire to save.
{Strength: 190 Charisma: 190
Precision: 190 Perception: 204
Agility: 190 Manipulation: 201
Speed: 190 Intelligence: 254
Endurance: 268 Wisdom: 230}
{Purified Divine Spark: 913,221}
{Divine Air Spark: 32,193}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Twilight - Chosen 30
Nature - Chosen 10
Knowledge - Chosen 10}
{GODDESSES
Elven Goddess
Goddess of Knowledge
Twilight Archangel
Goddess of the Forge
Goddess of Healing}