Chapter 88: Probably fine

Chapter 88: Probably fine

Alith shared the message with Sofia before even reading it.

[Mark of Aphenoreth] :

A mark left on your soul and life essence by the third Lord, Aphenoreth the inquisitor.

The Lords are beings ill understood.

The Lords' plane is currently out of system range. No connection has been established, though numerous scribes have been lost.

The intent in leaving this mark is unknown.

This mark cannot be undone.

This mark cannot be easily noticed except by the system, classes hyper-specialized in soul tempering, and in all likelihood, by the Lords.

No adverse effects from the mark have been recorded.

Four functions of the mark have been discovered :

- Soul protection. Due to the irremovable nature of the mark, your soul is now similarly impossible to erase. Please note that this does not prevent death.

-Any external attempt at tampering with your soul may result in severe backlash toward the source.

(System driven upgrades and progression are considered internal tempering)

- As a side effect of the soul protection, you are now much more resilient to planar drag, also known as summoning sickness.

- The leveling process of Saintess Sofias [Blessing of the Deep] has been changed to unknown conditions. It will still affect you and all of their summoned heroes.

There is a fifth function (95% certainty), that could not be deciphered, it shows patterns of danger sensing algorithms.

There are no other bearers of this mark under the system besides your party.

The system recommends never mentioning this mark to anyone. For your safety, all such attempts will be dispelled. Good luck.

Good luck Does this mark us as his property or something like that? This doesnt look so bad, if you forget the ominous system comments and where it came from, Alith commented.

Im not even going to question anything. If some dark god that can even hide from the system decides that were like his adoptive daughters, or like, pets? What are we going to do about it? Besides, the Deep has only been helpful so far. As long as its not restricting me in any way then I dont mind, Sofia said. She returned to what they were doing previously, Should be clean enough, let me do the thing.

She traced the ritual circles on the floor and disappeared.

Fuck, she actually cant even use her ghost form if Im not here, why did I just accept What if its dangerous?

She worried for nothing as her black haired companion reappeared soon after, unscathed.

Whats up with the relieved expression? Do you have so little faith in me?

I mean, what if it dropped you in an active volcano or something like that?

Alith shrugged, Id probably be fine even if it sent me directly into the sun. Heat immunity, remember? I have the slow fall ring if it drops me high in the sky, and I dont need to breathe so Id be good underwater. Really unless it dropped me right in the face of a level three hundred monster I dont see what could have gone wrong.

I still see a lot of ways it could go wrong but sure So what was it?

Well, youre never gonna believe it! It was Plains.

Thats it?

Nothing else in sight. Greenish plains, a few trees in the distance. Some weird herd of four-legged animals far away. Thats it. Beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. Fresh wind. Yeah, plains.

No real reason to go there instead of the desert then. Unless the worms still there.

Are you kidding? Its been like at least two months, right? No way this huge thing would have been waiting for three insects like us for this long.

Right I just cant stop being paranoid about everything now. This whole thing about a soul parasite really

Its fine. And were like double immune to shit like that now with the blessing AND the mark. Dont worry about it too much. Rather we should be worried about the assholes at the Church summoning you, its been a while since then.

Yeah We need to get back to civilization and buy stuff against space magic and [Identify] as soon as possible.

Drakron again? Alith was getting impatient, playing with the rings.

Well see. Depends on where we are, if we find another capital city or one of the magic academies that could work too. And if someone high-level tries to screw with us we can always pull out the Vampire card. Might be enough to dissuade them.

Sofia and Pareth entered the circle, and they finally escaped the locked city.

Didnt you say it was sunny?

They were back to where they had escaped from the giant worm, it wasn't anywhere to be seen, but it was the middle of the night.