Chapter 317: Blood Thicker Than Water (Patreon)

Bellessia

“So, it’s happened, and far earlier than we expected.” Sitting on the highest throne hovering around the stone table floating over humanity’s endless battle with the undead, the seat usually reserved for their father, Bellessia’s eldest living sibling, humanity’s God of War, frowned ever so slightly.

Like most of the rest of the Primordial Sovereign’s offspring, his looks were plain, those not in the know unlikely to pick him out as a god just from his appearance, but his aura, always the pinnacle of stability, made his power apparent to everyone else present.

The inventor of the Universal Balance Code cultivation technique, a master of the fire, water, earth, wind, space, and time elements, and the recognized strongest under the elder gods, God of War was the second among the Primordial Humans, and their leader whenever their father wasn’t around.

He was also an utterly terrifying man, having killed over thirty gods during his lifetime, and he didn’t play favorites, so no one sane ever acted out when he was running a meeting.

“The power of the Prime Material has weakened ever so slightly over the last couple dozen years, indicative of the runemaster truesoul advancing in another universe, and, judging by past experiences, it will weaken further for a few dozen more before stabilizing.” The God of War looked down at the battlefield where human armies were fighting undead in front of the large inter-universe portal. “The combat here will then become more intense.”

Undead gods could already enter the Prime Material through the portal leading to the undead’s main universe, but only one at a time, and it took over an hour for the portal to grow back in strength to allow a god to retreat, so no gods were generally stupid enough to risk it. But, if the portal grew stronger, and the undead gods gained the ability to come and go as they pleased? They would come in packs and only flee if someone powerful, like the God of War, was on site to kill them.

“Hellwater.” The God of War turned to look at Bellessia’s eldest sister. “What new information have we gained since Twilight ruined things for the rest of us.”

The Lord of Twilight Flame snorted from his seat, but didn’t speak up as his twin sister answered.

“We can reliably confirm the Heavenly Spark Soul King has a powerful clone skill, a skill which is then shared by the Mistress of Oaths and Deception.” The Lady of Hellwater relaxedly folded her hands on the great stone table. “This was originally how they were able to fool us, the clones having different soul signatures than their original bodies, likely something to do with the clones’ elemental alignments, though it is impossible to say for certain as the skill is seemingly a new invention.

“Using this skill the Heavenly Spark Soul King almost certainly had multiple clones participate in the C rank Universal Tournament, clones which he could then reincarnate through the devourer’s new monster tutorial function, gaining sources of perfectly idealized genetic power from the System which he could then raise and later absorb using his bloodline.

“This explains his quick advancement.

“Also, it is almost certain both War Dance’s Sword Saint and Twilight’s Illusionist were clones of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, meaning the woman’s control over faith energy has grown to the point she can fake divine classes and that her disguise skills are subtle enough to fool the senses of gods. A skinwalker line uniqueness seems the most likely reason for the latter, but the former is troublesome, probably enough that Quandra’s messengers at least are starting to feel fear as well.

“After gaining the inheritance of the Spirit Smith, however, it is likely the Heavenly Spark Soul King has created some of the skills from the patterns invented by his truesoul’s past incarnations, so we can’t rely on soul signatures anymore, at least from him and his wife, which has made mapping out the otherverses they’ve conquered a bit more difficult.”

The Lady of Hellwater raised her right hand and waved it, a hologram of hellish multi-colored water vapor showing a map of all the universes known by their faction, some universes highlighted in red, 126 small, 18 medium, and 3 large.

“Given that the red highlighted universes other than the one connected to Earth have all recently either changed their rulers or gained a new one during the time period since Twilight caused all of our followers to start dying, however, it hasn’t actually been difficult to guess which universes the Heavenly Spark Soul King has taken over.”

“That’s quite a lot of Territory for a B rank.” Bellessia’s remaining sister, most widely known in the Prime Material as the Duchess of Debauchery despite her official title being Princess of Revelry, provided a useless comment while sipping on a glass of wine.

The only known child of two elder gods in all known universes, her mother was the Elder Goddess of Emotions, one of humanity’s two other elder gods, and she took more after her mother than their father, pretty with big blue eyes, long dark hair, and the type of figure men wrote stories about.

She almost never took anything seriously, so Bellessia didn’t like her much, and neither did their eldest sister.

“All these universes were taken over while the Heavenly Spark Soul King was a C rank.” The Lady of Hellwater continued to look at the God of War, seemingly ignoring her sister. “There were no changes since other than the connecting portals between them all being strengthened to B rank.”

The Lady of Hellwater then pointed to one small universe, the original one Bellessia’s most talented offspring had conquered. “This includes the portal on Earth to the Heavenly Soul Universe, but it seems to have been abandoned.”

With their sister’s presentation completed, the God of War looked thoughtful. “The Heavenly Soul Universe is of no consequence. It’s power is being drained to maintain Earth’s status as an A rank planet and it has no connections to any other universes, so it is just an isolated small universe with almost no growth potential.

“The more interesting piece of information is why there have been no movements since the boy’s advancement.” He looked around at his five siblings and the other descendants of their father around the table. “Does anyone have any thoughts on why that might be?”

“There aren’t many more universes connected to his empire,” Omorius, the Huntsman, humanity’s God of Hunting and the oldest of the God of War’s three divine children, pointed at the general area on the map where the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s universes were located. “And any expansion might give their force new enemies due to having more borders with the undead and demons.”

Tiaria, the Mistress of Storm and the youngest child of the God of War, then added on to what her brother had said. “Also, he was able to hide his soulsignature even as a C rank, so it’s possible we haven’t noticed his expansion.

“He could be secretly taking existing lords of universes as his personal servants, something his powerset would make many agree to, especially mortals. Or, given all the other insane things he’s done, he could be expanding into elemental universes somehow, which our mortal agents wouldn’t be able to sense.”

“Hmm.” The God of War nodded his head and waited for anyone else to speak. Then, when they didn’t, he turned to Bellessia. “Bell, what do you think?”

As the youngest of all gods in the Prime Material, Bellessia generally didn’t talk much in meetings with her family, preferring to just listen, so she was a bit surprised to be called on, especially to be asked for information and not to allow one of her siblings to vent their frustration with the situation on her.

Still, she’d had something she’d wanted to add, something the God of War had almost certainly picked up on before calling on her, so she explained her thoughts. “Why would they want to expand at this time? That’s what I was thinking about.

“Sure, the amount of Territory Aalam can control has almost certainly increased by multiple orders of magnitude, but he was able to maximize his power as a C rank with just one small otherverse, so what he has now should be enough for B rank. His force is young, its population not large enough for even a small universe, let alone the current size of his Territory, so population wouldn’t force him to expand.

“The main reason for expansion would be to increase the strength of his royal line uniqueness, but that’s almost certainly Divine grade by this point and the advancement to Supreme grade would require a whole lot more Territory.

“Why not wait for his strength to increase first before expanding, given the issues The Huntsman already mentioned?”

There were signs of acknowledgement around the table, and Bellessia continued, voicing the biggest concern she had related to her most talented child after seeing the information her sister had shown. “But the bigger question I have is why do they seem to have access to our multiverse map?”

Bellessia watched as multiple faces appeared to realize the same thing she had, that Aalam’s Territory, which was the maximum size he theoretically should have been able to reach at C rank, had entirely consisted of universes in their known map.

“Given the expansion speed of their Territory,” the God of War began, speaking his thoughts out loud, “they almost certainly had a multiverse map. And Bellessia’s right that it was likely ours.”

He turned to look at the Lady of Hellwater, then at the Lord of Twilight Flame, The Huntsman, the Mistress of Storm, and a few other gods involved in Territory expansion efforts over the years, before looking back at the Lady of Hellwater. “Copies of our map, unless we have a traitor—something I find highly unlikely—would only be found in several of our vaults, but I’ve received no reports of any of our information orbs going missing.”

“Interesting. I’ll investigate—” the Lady of Hellwater began, but then she was interrupted by her twin flaring his aura and bashing his right hand onto the table, everyone turning to look at him.

“Those bastards,” the Lord of Twilight Flame growled. “They didn’t just want to trick me into causing our forces to lose System privileges. They wanted to steal a bit of my aura after tricking me into attacking so they could bypass the security on my vault.”

He closed his eyes for a second and calmed himself. “There’s nothing missing, but if they read through all the information in there I wouldn’t be able to tell. Could someone with more skill in time magic come and take a look later?”

“Certainly.” The God of War turned to look at his middle child, Ularia, the Lady of the Eternal Flame, an alchemist god who specialized in fire and time magic. “Ularia, please go help your uncle when this discussion is over.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The God of War then turned back to the Lady of Hellwater. “As for invading the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s universes, if the United Federation of Planets’ two strongest members have powerful clone skills, it seems our original plan of a massive multi-front assault by our subordinates would only serve to feed them primal energy.

“Has there been any headway in getting one of the messengers to trade us the Love Turned To Hate, Blood Thicker Than Water Array?”

“They can’t trade with us directly until the Lady of Laws deal with the Heavenly Spark Soul King expires,” Ularia, who, as an alchemist, interacted with other divine forces more, answered. “But Perival has strongly hinted Carina would be willing to trade with him, and, given how she was the only survivor of the extermination effort of the United Federation of Planets’ ancestral faction, I believe him.”

“Is there any way to get Tatiana or Zlar to compete for the position of intermediary for the trade?” God of War asked about the other two merchant gods.

“Unlikely.” Ularia shook her head. “Carina is already skirting her faction’s rules as is, so she’s going to want to gouge us. And she has a good working relationship with Perival, but not the other two.”

“And gouge us they will.” The God of War sighed, the most major show of emotion from him since the meeting began. “Everyone, prepare to help pay. We need to hurry now that the Heavenly Spark Soul King has reached B rank and try to kill him before he maximizes his power.

“Dismissed. But prepare for battle.”

As Bellessia rose from her seat, her eldest sister indicated for her to follow, and they entered into a Hellwater portal to arrive on an empty island on the A rank world her sister shared with her twin where the Lady of Hellwater liked to rest.

“You don’t know what the Love Turned To Hate, Blood Thicker Than Water Array is, correct?” her sister asked as she took a seat on the beach.

“No.” Bellessia sat down as well and looked out at the ocean.

“It’s an array the Lady of Laws invented which uses the unique soulbond between parents and children to allow a parent to increase the strength of a portal to a universe owned by one of her children by roughly three quarters of a rank. And, unlike a bloodline curse, it’s purely based on the soul, so it will work on the Heavenly Spark Soul King if you are the one to power it.”

Bellessia felt excited and fearful at the same time, excited because she’d actually be able to do something to stop the threat she’d accidentally created and fearful because she’d have to occasionally move to the front lines while making herself even more of a target. “If there was such an array, why didn’t we use it when they were trapped in only one universe?”

“It’s going to be expensive.” The Lady of Hellwater snorted. “Really expensive.

“And we have no way of inventing it ourselves, our research into souls nowhere near the level of the messengers.

“More important, however, for the invasion of the Heavenly Soul Universe, it would only have been able to increase the power of the portals we could strengthen to lower B rank to upper B rank instead, something pretty pointless when the Heavenly Spark Soul King had already proven he could kill A ranks even when not in a Universe he has complete control over.”

The Lady of Hellwater put a hand on Bellessia’s shoulder, a more comforting gesture than Bellessia had received from her sister since the death of her husband. “Prepare yourself, Bell. By advancing, your son has opened up avenues for us to attack him which he probably doesn’t know about. At the same time, however, he and his wife are not idiots, and they chose to advance now, so there is probably a lot of information we don’t know about them as well.”