Chapter 239: Why Gods Fear Shadows (Patreon)

Mila

“Aalam,” Mila sent, trying to sound calm even as she felt her heart start to race due to a mix of fear and excitement, “please elaborate.”

“Oh.” Aalam was starting to sound a little less distracted, likely having begun devoting one of his minds fully to the conversation. “As I have a royal line uniqueness, which greatly increases my soul’s affinity for natural energy, I don’t think I can awaken to a uniqueness of the same type like the shadow line, which instead increases affinity to faith energy…

“But that’s not what you meant.” Aalam appeared to realize his mistake without Mila having to prompt him. “In the brief discussion on elder gods in the Divine Compendium, it says the law energy of elder gods can subsume and control the law energy of lower gods that are based on similar elements. I’m mainly just guessing that a much, much higher affinity with faith energy like you could gain from your uniqueness advancing would have the same effect.

“It would at least make the behavior of the gods make more sense.”

Mila grew even more excited for a few seconds, the emotion pushing back the fear she’d been feeling, but then she remembered she’d yet to advance her Shadow Princess uniqueness to Shadow Queen even in the decades since she’d gotten it, and her excitement quickly faded.

Still, with their new understanding of the capabilities of gods, it would be much, much easier to start making plans, and achieving the ridiculous feat required to revive Diana was starting to seem quite a bit more possible.

“Aalam, I’m thinking of waiting to see what we need in the next 36 years before making any more purchases from the army point store. Is there anything you need from me or you think I need to know before I start the process of awakening to another uniqueness?”

“No, not really. But could you have everyone preparing to awaken a new uniqueness come to my workshop to do the awakenings one at a time?

“I would like to see if I can figure out what the System is doing so I can see if there is a way to copy the effect.”

Mila started to smile again as she quickly used Earth’s soul net to share Aalam’s request with the other eleven army commanders. Then, as she started walking toward Aalam’s crafting hall herself, preparing to be the first from Earth to awaken to a new uniqueness using their War of the Chosen rewards, she also started talking with Nana Xara.

“So, were you really not fully aware of the capabilities of shadow line uniquenesses?”

“Yep.” Nana Xara sounded like her usual cheerful self, and, as Mila had gained a better understanding of the woman over the years, she was pretty sure her master wasn’t faking the cheer at all. “Of the two of my descendants who awakened to Heroic grade versions of shadow line uniquenesses, and my one great-grandson who survived due to awakening to Shadow Prince, none trained in karma-based skills. And my husband’s karma-based skills only involved contracts, so I don’t think even he knew his uniqueness would have made him better at curses and blessings as well.

“As for everything we just learned involving faith energy, I knew almost none of it.

“The gods in this universe are very closed-lipped on information related to their own powers, and I’m still amazed something like the Divine Compendium was made available in the War of the Chosen.”

Mila suddenly felt a bit worried, almost stopping in her tracks. “Do you think the information inside could be faked?”

“No.” Nana Xara’s apparent cheer didn’t lessen at all. “All the information I had before fits with what we just learned, from why those special areas in the Steel Swamp Blessed Land easily block karmic bonds but require different settings and a whole lot more energy to block Aalam’s connection to his Territory to why so many extremely talented A ranks over the years never became gods while some incredibly weak A ranks have.” Mila quickly thought and realized the former was because the blessed land was better at blocking faith energy than natural energy while the latter was because the weaker A ranks had managed to reach the minimum required Luck stat. “There are also many, many other minor things as well.”

“Good.”

“You did incredibly well this time, Mila. As usual.” Nana Xara changed her tone to sound a bit more serious. “And thank you.

“I had always thought not being able to qualify for any higher grade classes was the only thing blocking me from ascension, but now I know my Luck stat was too low as well, so I can make preparations for the chance you ever become a god yourself.”

The talk of how Nana Xara had gotten stuck suddenly made Mila realize something which should have been obvious.

Aalam was planning on achieving the highest grade possible classes at A rank, and Mila and Isaiah were planning on following him, but this meant there would be no higher grade to reach, so they wouldn’t be able to advance normally.

Faith energy would not be able to push them into divinity, and their Laws would not be able to transform their souls, so they would have to aim towards the third method of achieving divinity, accumulating such solid foundations that their souls naturally ascended, a method only ever achieved by one particularly powerful Chaos Dragon in the history of their universe.

Now, for her and Aalam, this might not be as impossible as it sounded. From what Mila could tell, one prerequisite for such a foundation was a sublime soul variant race. But for Isaiah, well, Mila would have to think a lot more about how to get their friend better and better resources.

Walking into Aalam’s crafting hall, Mila didn’t waste any time, entering into an isolation array formation Aalam had already activated. Then she lay down on the comfy mattress Aalam had placed in the center of the array before accepting her first Uniqueness Awakening Boon from the System.

Some kind of energy was teleported all around her body and then somehow entered into her soul, causing a tingling sensation as if all her nerves were sending numb signals at once, but it was hard to catch much detail as she felt herself drifting off into sleep.

* * *

Mila awoke seventeen hours and fifty-three minutes later to see a System message.

Congratulations!

You have awoken to a new uniqueness!

Then, without wasting any more time, she brought up her status.

Name: Li Mila

Level: 108

Race: Sublime Soul Succubus Empress (E-Heroic)

Bloodline: Prime Servitor (Mythic)

Abilities

Omniglot Reader (Fabled)

Fairy Law (Fabled)

Master of Disguise (Heroic)

Sin Eater (Fabled)

Princess’s Aura (Fabled)

Nascent/Primal Energy Constructor (Heroic) [shadowed]

Class 1: Evil Eyes Diabolical Trickster (E-Heroic)

Skills

Advanced Artifact Enhancement (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Advanced Devil’s Contract (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Trickster’s Guise (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Phantasmic Doppelgängers (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Evil Eyes - Lust, Greed, Wrath (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Shadow Stride (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Class 2: Essence Chamberlain (E-Fabled)

Skills

Exemplary Chamberlain (E-Fabled) 100% mastered

Breath of Life (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Advanced Angel’s Release (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Holy Eyes - Chastity, Charity, Patience (E-Heroic) 100% mastered

Elevated Multi-Mind (E-Fabled) [shadowed]

Ruler’s Domain (E-Fabled) [shadowed]

Laws

Law Pupae:

The Healer - High

The Reaper - High

Shadow - High

Illusion - High

The Tactician - High

The Courtesan - High

Cultivation:

Technique:

Yin Yang Cosmology - Mixed (Level 11)

Twelve Element Primal Code - Heavenly Spark [Weakened] (Level 11)

Foundation: Flawless

Stats:

Strength: 54,000 (+22%)

Agility: 54,000 (+22%)

Endurance: 58,320 (+22%)

Toughness: 54,000 (+22%)

Vitality: 58,320 (+122%)

Perception: 61,200 (+122%)

Magic: 66,960 (+22%)

Spirit: 72,720 (+22%)

Soul: 99,360 (+72%)

Aura: 66,960 (+322%)

Attunement: 66,960 (+172%)

Luck: 64,800 (+22%)

Free Stats: 0

Soulstructures:

Lower Dantian: 1 Huge Core Container

Middle Dantian: 12 Medium + 1 Large Mana Wells

Upper Dantian: 7 Huge Mental Forges

Uniqueness:

Shadow Princess

Third Eye Princess

Skinwalker Princess

Boons:

Personal Chamberlain of the Heavenly Spark Soul King I: Increase the effectiveness of the Soul and Attunement stats by 50% and raise affinity with all Laws by 100%.

Personal Chamberlain of the Heavenly Spark Soul King II: Increase the max stats of your race by 25%.

Hunter of Sentients XIX: Increase the effectiveness of all base stats by 9.5%

Mila had moved all her wealth into the coffers of the United Federation of Planets, so she no longer had an assets section of her status—and she’d managed to improve most of her racial abilities along with gaining a new second boon from Aalam once he’d maximized his soul stat—but the part of her status she was focused on was her new third uniqueness. And, realizing what it was, Mila felt herself start to grin.

Given the way the System worked, the name of this uniqueness was not received from the System as the System didn’t even know what her uniqueness was, but was instead taken from her own mind and what she would name it. But Mila had long ago read up on all the known uniquenesses in the universe, so she had given her new uniqueness its recognized name, and it was another of only a few uniqueness lines important enough to be explicitly mentioned in the Divine Compendium.