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.

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}