Chapter 112

“So, what was the cost of their arrogance,” I asked, trying to ignore the fact that I had detected another Divine spark in the room, though I had no idea about the exact location. The confirmation about the existence of the gods —not to mention a tale of war between the mortals and immortals— was revolutionary enough to earn my full attention.

“Yeah, humans got arrogant, big surprise,” she murmured, giving a statement that would have surprised me if I hadn’t already discovered her true identity. “The Eternals decided that since they were able to banish one of the strongest demonic gods from the material plane, they thought that they could replicate the feat. They started to target the other gods...”

“And I’m going to take a wild guess and say that gods didn’t appreciate that,” I said mockingly.

“No, they did not, especially when they decided to weaponize the leftover divinity from the destruction of the Avatar and the Divine war began,” she continued, struggling to keep her tone even, but unable to keep a small hint of emotion infecting her tone, a certain wistfulness, leading me to take a wild guess that she wasn’t actually lived through the war. It was more of an instinctual guess than anything concrete, but at this point, I had learned to trust my instincts on the subject of female emotions.

The more important topic, however, was to decide how much I needed to fake. I could have acted as I knew about her historical facts like I knew about the mysterious organization, but there was one big problem in that. There were too many opportunities for her to slip an inaccurate statement to test me. One wrong nod would be enough to unravel my utter lack of historical knowledge.

“Interesting, and how does the System link to that,” I asked, not hiding my curiosity, basically admitting that I knew little about history. Also, I knew that doing so would have lessened the weight of my own organization greatly, but that was not all bad. If she reduced the threat level of my imaginary organization, she might push harder to recruit me. And as much as I was afraid of being

“You don’t know?” she asked, though, at this point, I was familiar enough with her fake voice to recognize the fakeness of her surprise. Apparently, she was already suspecting the limited nature of my knowledge.

“Not particularly, no,” I answered. “My organization is not really keen on the history, more focused on protecting our little corner of the world from meddling busybodies like the Eternals, and a few other small groups,” I said. Technically, it was the truth. We, as in me and the girls, were trying to protect our little corner, Silver Spires, from the busybodies that fell under the flag of Eternals and Necromancers.

“I see,” she said, but this time, her voice smoothed out a bit. “And have you thought about my offer? I can give you power.”

I decided to accept, and started adding another small detail to my fake soul space. A copy of the Companion Node that I gifted to the girls, but one that was around twenty percent completion. My words, however, differed. “I have, but unfortunately, I need to say no?”

“What, why?” she gasped, this time, her shock completely genuine. Apparently, she was thinking that after all the effort I had put in, it was a done deal.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to fight at the same side with you. Between undead hordes and monster hordes, the enemy is clearly evil,” I said, but then, I paused as I gestured my surroundings. “But I’m not sure just how better are you, soaked in darkness. We both know that the nature of magic usage is not a one-way road. Being soaked in darkness for who knows how long, how could I be sure that you’re any better than the liches that sieging the school. How can I be sure that there’s not another lich under your robes.”

She said nothing for a moment, thinking my words, while I committed fully on my bluff. I made a show of gathering my mana, purest I could manage, fire elemental mashed with a generous serving of life magic, essentially the bane of undead, not only selling my hatred against undead, but it was also the most similar magic I could cast similar to light magic, at least in terms of the sensation.

Of course, the whole point of my fake standoff relied on the fact that I had learned about her true identity, something even Titania wasn’t aware of. I was essentially positioning myself as everything that stood against the undead and the fake personality she had created to hide her true identity. I had one objective.

To force her to reveal her true face to gain my alliance.

It wasn’t that I wanted to see her beautiful face rather than her cloaked body. While that would have been fun, the knowledge that what lay underneath those robes, while she thought that I knew nothing about the truth of it, had its own warped thrill.

She had been hiding her face for almost two centuries —at least— from everyone —possibly except a few select people, but even that was not a certainty. I wanted her to reveal her true nature before speaking, because it would break a comfortable layer of subterfuge she had been relying on for centuries, making it much easier to take at least partial control of our discussions.

“Are you sure you want to make that decision just because of my darkness,” she said, the darkness suddenly intensifying, the aura slamming against me like a rabid monster, enough to scare me if I hadn’t known that she was pushing her limits to handle the darkness just to intimidate me.

My face stiffened as I flared my purest life energy against her aura, actively burning mana rather than just yielding it.

[-315 Mana]

If she had been an undead like her cover was alluding to, she might have reacted to that as an actual attack. Instead, she stood motionless as I pushed back the darkness to a degree that I started stirring the Divine Spark of Darkness once more. It was angry.

She must have realized that reaction as well, because the pressure disappeared immediately, and the life energy filled the room, her body as the only exception as her robes created an impenetrable barrier for it. It was easy to assume that her robe was reinforced against pure energies to protect her. Luckily, I knew that it was just to hide her true nature.

I slowly let my implied attack go, relaxing once more as she stood motionless, no doubt thinking how to handle my sudden hard stance. Just to push her even more out of balance, I once again leaned back and crossed my legs. “Do you have any tea?” I suddenly asked.

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]