Chapter 688: Nevermore: The Runemaiden

The level 255 Demon Warden - one of the bosses on the thirty-third floor of Minaga's Labyrinth on Archmage difficulty - dodged as the blast of pure kinetic energy flew past him. He quickly got his footing as the woman followed up, diving in close.

Several deadly strikes flew out as she relentlessly attacked. The Demon Warden summoned barriers as he retaliated, manifesting a spear of crystal he thrust down toward his opponent. Rather than dodge, the woman followed through with her attack, punching the demon in the chest right as she herself was speared in her shoulder.

At least, that is what the Demon Warden had expected to happen.

The crystalline weapon shattered upon impact with the woman, tearing up her leather armor but failing to penetrate her skin, leaving only slight marks. In return, he was punched square in the chest, launching him backward.

With confusion, he attacked again, his crystalline magic failing every time to truly damage his opponent and his attacks as a pugilist failing even more disastrously. It was as if her body was made of metal, with none of his physical attacks working. The Demon Warden thus switched up his strategy and began to use fire magic.

However, even that proved ineffective. The second the magic hit her, runes lit up on her body, weakening the flames. Growing more and more desperate, the Demon Warden kept trying different things. He knew his comrades were struggling elsewhere in the prison camp, but no matter what he did, nothing worked.

The only good thing for the Demon Warden was the low offensive prowess of the woman, but that didn't help when he failed to do any meaningful damage either. In the end, the battle turned into a long slugfest. One the Demon Warden would never win. Soon, four individuals appeared nearby, simply watching the fight.

Ultimately, the outcome was determined when the Demon Warden fell after what felt like the ten-thousandth hit, his entire body broken from the repeated pummelling and his health points utterly depleted.

"Well fought, Carmen," the young druid said as he flew over. He was a weird one because even if he tried to talk like an old man at times, he only looked to be in his twenties.

"Finally learned to use my damn name, huh?" she scoffed. "Also, no... that wasn't well-fought, but a drawn-out pummelling. Fighting without using big finishers seriously sucks."

"I truly meant no offense with my comment or failing to use your name as you have asked of me. Customs were simply too ingrained in my being, Runemai- I mean, Carmen," the druid said apologetically.

"She was taking the piss. At least with the name part, Carmen does suck at actually killing anything," a bare-chested large man said as he walked over, his chest not actually visible due to how much blood had drenched him. This was Carmen's favorite guy in the party. He was a berserker that used two massive swords. A pure brawler. He also wasn't as uptight as many of the others and the leader of their party - Warlord Davion.

"Well fuck you too," Carmen scoffed.

He just laughed as he took a seat and looked at the pummeled Demon Warden and back at Carmen. "That mini-boss couldn't manage to overcome your defenses either?"

"No," Carmen shook her look.

"Well, fuck me indeed. Damn Runemaidens... then again, I guess you are a special case," he shook his head.

The last two members of the party were a shaman and a seer, which made up the casters of their group. It had to be mentioned that even if druids were usually casters, their druid sure as hell wasn't. While he liked to act all refined, his primary mode of combat was turning into a large scaled tiger with wings that could breathe lightning. So at least he could fight properly.

Overall, she didn't have that many complaints about her party, and they were overall pretty okay people. Though if you had asked her just a few months before entering Nevermore, she would have said there was no fucking way she would enter with Valhal.

Carmen had been less than satisfied with the faction for a long time. The political bullshit pissed her off to no end, and she had even been told not to associate with pretty much anyone on Earth outside of those who belonged to Valhal. She had not attended all the meetings Jake had held with all the other factions, been unable to go to that big ceremony of his, and honestly hated belonging to the faction she had chosen to be a part of. It wasn't like she could just leave, either. Not without fucking herself over majorly, as the Path she walked required her to remain.

In the end, Carmen had reached a breaking point. The status quo had to change, or she would go crazy, and she only saw two choices: either abandon Valhal and her entire Path or make Valhal tell her what the fuck was going on. With this in mind, she had reached out to Gudrun and laid out her thoughts. After some deliberation, Carmen was offered a deal.

If she wanted to "be in the know," she had to prove herself worthy.

From the very beginning, when she signed up with Valhal, she had been walking the Path of a Runemaiden. Runemaidens were quite a peculiar thing, as it was considered both a title and a Path.

Only in C-grade could one become a true Runemaiden, but even those who walked the Path of one were called a Runemaiden in lower grades out of respect. To walk the Path of a Runemaiden was to willingly risk your life to survive the Runemaiden Ascension Ritual. The process through which the Runemaidens were created. A ritual that would either give birth to a True Runemaiden... or death. Well, and a lot of Bone Metal.

Bone Metal was a special material that wasn't even metal, which made the name pretty damn dumb in Carmen's mind. It was only really used by Valhal as they were the only ones who knew the method of crafting it. As the name indicated, the "metal" was created from bones. The usual way this special quasi-metal was made was through the bodies of the fallen - a final way of honoring them by turning their very bones into weapons, so they could continue to battle even in the afterlife. These weapons tended to always be of high quality and were better the stronger the dead person was.

However... this led to a question. What if the process of creating Bone Metal was applied to someone who still lived? There would be two results. One was that the person would die, their flesh would melt away, and only the metalized bones would remain. The second outcome was a success. The bones would successfully be turned into Bone Metal, and the entire body would be reforged. Their skin would become as hard as armor, their muscles and flesh making the body more closely match that of a defense-focused beast rather than a humanoid.

All it would cost was any and all ability to ever do magic. Something Carmen was fine with because fuck magic.

Carmen had strengthened her body throughout the grades to prepare for this ritual, such as the process she went through to strengthen her fists. She had even focused primarily on Toughness and Vitality, especially towards the end of D-grade. It had made her slightly weaker in combat, but it was all to build a foundation. Her D-grade evolution had been the final primer.

In reality, Carmen did not have a high risk of dying if she wanted to become a true Runemaiden. If she was satisfied with just barely becoming one, that is, for not all Runemaidens were born equally.

The materials required to birth a true Runemaiden were numerous and rare, and Valhal remained secretive about what they were, but the most vital ingredient was well-known in the multiverse:

Blood.

Blood of a greater being.

The deal Carmen had struck was to successfully become a Runemaiden of one of the gods of Valhal by using their blood in the ritual. Gudrun had advised her about what god they could use... but Carmen already knew who she would pick. Usually, one would avoid the blood of gods during the Ascension Ritual due to the overwhelming Records of the god, but it did happen semi-frequently. Which begged the question... which god's blood should she ask for?

Well, the answer was pretty obvious.

Carmen knew the kind of people that surrounded her. The old swordsman was an utter monster and a Transcendent. Jake was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and had a Bloodline. She had even felt Sylphie, the cute bird she had met during the Treasure Hunt, surpass her while they hung out together after splitting from Jake as she grew into her own. If she wanted to have even the slightest chance of wanting to keep up with all of these supreme geniuses, she had to take a risk. Carmen didn't think she was a supreme genius like the rest... but she was too stubborn to not at least try to keep up.

Hence why she had chosen Valdemar's blood for the ritual.

Something she was instantly forbidden from. The risk of the Runemaiden Ritual was directly proportional to how powerful the blood of the greater being was. That meant getting blood from Valdemar would carry a risk higher than anyone else... so high that the success rate was too low for Valhal to use his blood anymore. It simply wasn't worth the risk. The last forty-thousand rituals using his blood had failed, and that was when they had stopped.

Carmen didn't care; she insisted on using his blood anyway. Ultimately, Gudrun surrendered before Carmen's stubbornness and agreed on one condition... Carmen had to make Valdemar himself approve of her and donate his blood.

When Carmen reached level 199, she was thus teleported from Earth and left the ninety-third universe - straight to the headquarters of Valhal itself. She had appeared in the Grand Hall of Valhal. Stood before the gods of Valhal... and found them less intimidating than she probably should have.

Something that had amused one of them more than anything... because while she didn't find most of the gods intimidating, the feeling was vastly different when she met her blood donor in the flesh. This was not an instance of her getting teleported by the system or talking to a projection. He was truly there, and for the first time, Carmen felt like she stood before the definition of overwhelming power.

Carmen had only been able to grin. Something that also made Valdemar smile. Her knees had buckled, her entire body covered in sweat, but she had managed to stand before him, something he clearly liked. Their eyes had met once before he grinned and spoke.

"You're willing to use my blood and risk everything to gain a small advantage over those just using the blood of another warrior?"

A stupid question, in Carmen's opinion. "I'm not a bloody coward."

"You're reckless in your pursuit to get stronger," Valdemar smiled.

"Weren't you?" Carmen shot back before even thinking.

Silence took over the room. Nobody said anything, not even Gudrun. Several seconds passed as the strongest human in the multiverse stared down at her. Then, Valdemar broke into a belly laugh.

"Lass has the guts. Let her do as she wants," Valdemar said in a cheerful tone as he looked at her. "But you have to take an oath before I allow it."

Carmen knew there was always more to this kind of thing, and fighting through the pressure of the man's stare, she spoke: "What oath?"

Valdemar smiled even more than before. "That we'll share a mug of mead after the ritual. So either succeed or die a liar."

It took her a moment to understand what he meant, as Carmen couldn't help but chuckle. "Better have some good fucking mead ready."

"Brewed it myself, so it bloody better be," Valdemar laughed in response.

From there, Carmen began her preparations for the ritual. First, she had to "cleanse" her body, which required her to spend over a week in large medicinal baths while performing certain training motions in between.

After the cleaning, she had to strengthen her body as much as she could. This was not by increasing her stats or even her innate resistance but by learning how to better use her innate energy and move it in certain patterns to help her properly understand her own body. This ended up not taking that long - not even three days - as Carmen was already bloody good at it. Once that was done, it was time for the real thing.

The ritual itself was... less than pleasant. A large magical circle was created, and Carmen spent more than fifty hours getting the many runes tattooed all over her body. The process was painful, but it was nothing compared to what happened next.

This was not a ritual that simply changed her body but also her soul. Her entire Soulshape would be reforged, her entire being reborn... and she had to do it all herself. This was not a simple process of holding on and just gritting your teeth through the pain. You had to keep your soul from disintegrating as it was repeatedly shattered, all the while controlling the energy invading your body. Carmen did not think herself some genius of energy control... but she did know her own body. Moreover, she was stubborn. She also had to admit that she once more owed Jake... because one of the primary reasons this ritual was so difficult was that one had to endure the pressure of the greater being's Records all throughout. Something Jake had primed Carmen to be capable of.

Carmen knew that when she entered the ritual circle, no one present expected her to step out of it alive - besides maybe Valdemar. They tried to hide their scornful faces, their comments of how Carmen was overestimating herself and delusional, and how she was just courting death due to her own stupidity. Carmen was honestly thankful to these people, as they had made her even more resolute to succeed, just to tell them to go fuck themselves once she was done.

Needless to say, Carmen succeeded even if the ritual itself was an absolute fucking nightmare. She felt like her body was ripped apart over and over again, and she experienced worse pain than she could even imagine. There was a constant feeling of not truly knowing who you were, and everything was compounded by the Records of Valdemar seeking to overcome her own and turn her into a statue. A damn good statue for sure, but Carmen had no intentions of that fate.

The final part of the ritual was the evolution itself. Rather than the usual evolution window, Carmen was asked at the very end of the ritual if she wished to evolve her race and class - both at the same time due to the peculiar nature of the ritual - something she had naturally agreed with.

After eleven days of suffering through that absolutely hellish ritual, the first Runemaiden of Valdemar in over half an era, and the only one currently living was born. Not because the other one died of age, mind you.

Just that one was no longer called a Runemaiden after ascending to godhood.

And Carmen had no intentions of breaking that streak of one.

Carmen smiled a bit to herself as she remembered the first sight that met her after the ritual. She remembered opening her eyes and seeing a glass full of mead right in front of her as Valdemar stood off to the side, staring down at her. She especially smiled, remembering her first words to him.

"Why are you creeping on a naked girl?"

And his response.

"You're a girl no longer, Runemaiden," he laughed as he turned away. "But yeah, you should probably put something on..."

After that, Carmen had gotten drunk on the best damn alcohol she had ever had in her life. The mead not only been damn tasty but also helped her body somehow properly adapt better to its changes. In the end, she had walked away not just with good taste in her mouth but a Divine Blessing from Valdemar - which was a bit silly as Carmen felt like she was repeatedly changing titles these days. Though she had a good feeling she would keep this one for a while... it could change again based on Valdemar's parting words.

"Keep that obsession of yours, lass. Who knows, I may call on you when I need a new Chosen if you are interested, but you aren't quite ready yet. Prove my blood wasn't wasted on you, aight?"

Still smiling, Carmen stopped reminiscing about the past and returned to the present, standing there on the thirty-third floor of Nevermore. She felt good knowing she was not there just because of pity or because Valhal wanted to keep her happy because of Jake - because she now also knew that things were indeed complicated with all of that Yip of Yore shit.

No, she was there because she was one of the strongest C-grades of her generation, and she would gladly punch anyone in the face who told her otherwise.