Chapter 303: Conversation During the Nightmare Royale (Patreon)

Diana

Diana took a few seconds to think. Part of her, the largest part, wanted to run and hide, but another was angry and wanted to murder Bellessia, while yet another was focused on how it had always been her job to protect her little brother, not the other way around.

She was talented. Not quite to the level of Aalam, but, compared to Isaiah or Mila, who had to rely on her brother for over half their power, she’d been a growing natural disaster, a future goddess in the making, the true inheritor of one of the most dangerous women to ever roam the Prime Material.

And this was before whatever utterly bullshit build her brother had concocted for her.

“I want to take control of my own fate.”

Diana infused her body with her Law Larva of Flesh and then used her peak grade Law Egg of Day to send out a blinding light before launching a punch at Vanar Tedros, a punch which the man easily blocked before manipulating her momentum and sending her to the ground.

“Good.” He reached down to help her up. “Then let’s use all the free time we have to train.”

Your team has survived the Nightmare Royale Bonus Round

You may choose one skill and one artifact from the following lists as a reward.

The skill can be learned immediately or granted as a skill orb and secretly placed in your pocket.

The artifact will appear on your person, secretly in one of your pockets if small enough.

You have an unlimited time to choose.

One hour later, the challenge was over and Diana and Mr. Tedros chose the obvious rewards Aalam had prepared for them.

For their artifacts, she received something called a Semi-Deified Faith Gathering Stone, a basketball-sized golden rock which somehow made her almost want to bow in its presence, while Mr. Tedros received a sealed vial with what looked like water inside but which, given it was called Diana’s General Miasma, was obviously some kind of extremely dangerous plague.

Then for skills Mr. Tedros received Speed Steps (G-Legendary), the fastest movement skill available to G ranks, while Diana received Yin Force (G-Legendary), a supplementary skill which empowered other yin aligned skills, i.e. skills of the death, darkness, and water elements.

“Do you know what class and race my brother has planned for me?” Diana asked, looking at Mr. Tedros as they appeared in an empty void to see their calculated trial points for the challenge.

“I don’t know the specifics.” Mr. Tedros shook his head. “He just told me to help you with your energy control and close combat abilities.”

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”

The excitement in Nana Xara’s voice, more than anything, like she was just about to pull out popcorn and watch a good show, started to make Diana worry.

***

Raven

Raven looked at the plague in his hands and compared it to the antidote he’d received earlier before starting to smile. Then he learned the Speed Steps (G-Legendary) skill the Heavenly Spark Soul King had prepared for him and ignored the bloody corpses around him as he moved on to the next phase of the tutorial.

***

Wen

Wen Alexis wasn’t sure how he felt about what he’d just done, killing innocent alien civilians, a new species who looked kind of like a cross between elves like him and plants, but not like any kind of dryad he’d ever heard of. The System, however, or at least the gods behind it, were cruel, and he hadn’t had much of a choice if he wanted power.

Sighing to himself, he accepted the powerful plague the Heavenly Spark Soul King had prepared, along with the Telekinesis (G-Legendary) skill he’d requested, and then he finished the challenge.

***

Immortalia

Why in the name of the everburning flame was the Heavenly Spark Soul King participating in a monster tutorial?

This was the first question on Immortalia’s mind upon seeing the man in the second round of the Nightmare Royale, defending herself as he bent space in the entire room to try and kill everyone.

Her second question, however, was why her magical senses were telling her he only had a single core container, mana well, and mental forge, all seemingly aligned to the space element.

“Oh, interesting.” The man bent space slightly, moving as far away from her as the room would allow. “You’re not one of mine, so you couldn’t have used the System boon. And you look like a native. How did you get in here then?”

Immortalia, who had taken over the body of a native of the planet being integrated, killed herself at the right time to enter the monster tutorial, and kept the soul shape for the tutorial as a result—looking like a cross between an elf and a badger—ignored his question and instead asked her own. “Why are you in the monster tutorial again, boy? Didn’t you gain enough benefits the first time?”

“No. Nowhere near enough.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King, or maybe a clone of his, smiled, but Immortalia was completely unable to read his aura, so it was difficult to tell if his shown emotion was genuine. “But what about you? You call me boy, implying you’re older than me. And I can’t read your aura, despite almost certainly having a higher aura stat.

“Very interesting.”

He looked her up and down. “From your lack of readable aura, I can assume you have a sublime soul, something only gods usually awaken. And I doubt an A or B rank with a sublime soul would strip away all their power to allow themselves to be reborn, which means you were almost certainly a god.

“But you are surprised to see me, so you didn’t enter the tutorial to target me. You instinctively used fire magic to defend against my attack, with a hint of the life, death, and time elements, which gives some obvious hints about your previous Law path. And you chose a female body when you had the option to choose male, which makes the best fit I can think of less likely.”

Immortalia watched as his eyes grew wide. “Wait, are you one of the fallen monster gods? Are you the Undying Phoenix?”

Immortalia felt her soul shiver and she almost immediately moved to attack, undying destruction flames lighting up in her hand as she lunged forward.

“Wait! Wait!” The Heavenly Spark Soul King shouted as he did his best to dodge, almost teleporting around the room. “You’re being recorded right now, and, if you kill me, nothing will stop the recording from being released.”

Immortalia stopped, glaring at the Heavenly Spark Soul King. “The gods can’t see what goes on during a tutorial unless they pay to look, and, even in that case, they can only do so once everyone from that tutorial has died. I was there when the rules were made, boy.”

“It’s a special feature for being one of the first to use a boon for accessing a monster tutorial as a means of reincarnation.”

Damn.

What the Heavenly Spark Soul King said made sense as a new feature, especially with the addition of the monster tutorials to the System being so new, but there was one part missing. “You would want to hide your identity as well. As far as I know, the fact you have a clone skill hasn’t been revealed.”

“The release of the recording is delayed. I’ll already be well into B rank by the time it is out and the gods will have figured out more of my abilities by then. So what’s the point of hiding when I can double my trial points if I don’t?”

Immortalia grumbled under her breath for a couple seconds, putting out most of her flame and moving back toward the wall away from Primordius’s grandson.

His logic made sense, and there was a good chance he wasn’t lying.

“If it helps, one of my masters was your old friend.”

“Who?” Immortalia was confused. All her old friends were either dead or partially responsible for killing the others, yet the Heavenly Spark Soul King seemed to think mentioning one of his masters would help her feel closer to him?

“Steel Swamp Sorin.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King moved into a more relaxed position, leaning against the wall, but she could tell from his body language he was still ready if she tried to attack him again. “I’m his inheritor.”

At his words, Immortalia felt her non-existent heart start to beat a little faster. “The Steel Swamp Blessed Land. You found it somehow?”

“The sect I destroyed, the Violet Mountain Sect, they were using it as their Violet Mountain Blessed Land, thinking it was a naturally formed demiplane.”

Ah. No wonder. The Prime Material universe was so large, with new planets becoming mana concentration nodes every year, and 45 trillion years ago the Carium Galaxy Cluster, where the Violet Mountain Sect later ruled, hadn’t had any ranked life planets at all. It had been the middle of nowhere, so of course no one had ever found the Steel Swamp Blessed Land. And, as far as she knew, the Carium Galaxy Cluster had only been integrated within the last several dozen million years, so it made sense a B rank force would be the one to claim it, no one powerful enough to realize what it truly was having yet deigned to visit.

“Before we discuss more, though,” the Heavenly Spark Soul King sent a request for the two of them to form a temporary team for the royale, “it’s probably best if we complete this challenge first.”

Without much thinking Immortalia accepted.

“Did you deliberately target the blessed land?”

“No. My wife found it when looking for a copy of the Twelve Element Primal Code.”

“And then you just randomly ran into me here?” Immortalia very much did not like coincidences as, in her experience, they generally weren’t real, she herself having arranged millions of fake ones in her lifetime to manipulate the weak.

“Is it really random?” The Heavenly Spark Soul King looked thoughtful. “The Carium Galaxy Cluster is relatively close to Earth’s original location and far away from any of the major forces whose members would recognize it for what it was, even those the Violet Mountain Sect paid tribute to, while the reason the Violet Mountain Sect had a copy of the Twelve Element Primal Code in the first place in such a remote location was that they received it from the blessed land. It was a lucky find for me and my wife, sure, but by no means a coincidence. And this isn’t even accounting for how the System values the Luck stat and likely gave me a training artifact from my first teacher, attracting us to the Carium Galaxy Cluster in the first place, precisely because of the blessed land’s existence.

“As for meeting you?” The Heavenly Spark Soul King raised an eyebrow. “Given how long monster tutorials have been going on, and the animosity I presume you have toward the current gods in the Prime Material, I’m guessing it is no coincidence you joined the first round of monster tutorials after the last C rank Universal Tournament, where I proved the race potential of the monster tutorial rebirth process.

“There are only 19 such tutorials going on right now, and I’m in 12 of them, so the chance of us meeting is higher than 50%, again not a coincidence.”

Immortalia thought about it and agreed with the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s conclusion. “Is Gith’Ilizanivarikal doing well?”

“Jeeves?” The Heavenly Spark Soul King smiled without any delay. “Yeah. He’s still serving as the blessed land’s butler. And right now he’s guarding most of my valuables.”

And there was her proof. The Heavenly Spark Soul King likely wasn’t lying, and this meant her old friend had an actual living inheritor, a rather amazing one at that.