When Ben and Thera got through the untamed land’s gate they were told to take, they encountered the three they were expecting. Three gods who had descended upon the world into the bodies of their believers.
The average adventurer that was there had no clue who they were but could feel something exuding from them, a feeling of power unlike any other as they wondered if perhaps it was a meeting between third-tier skill holders, not knowing that they were experiencing divinity for the first time.
Even Thera, knowing exactly who they were, had to keep herself from bowing down to them, their presence felt that great. It was only Ben whose skills protected him from the feeling, as well as his general indifference to whatever respect people believed the gods were due, who treated the meeting like any other, walking forward and offering his hand.
“Hey, good to meet you, I guess you’ll be keeping us alive for a while so let's get along.”
The two unknown gods, one of space by the name of Baphel, and the other being the god Slareth, one who represented both forests and hunting that Ben remembered reading about back when he was still at the church, stared at his hand briefly in confusion, not used to mortals acting like that while the succubus priestess that Anailia was wearing chuckled to the side as they both eventually took it, giving it a firm shake while Thera stood with her head in her hands.
“I must say, this boyfriend of yours is so good for keeping things interesting, child,” Anailia told her, giving a friendly pat on the back. “I think it's my first time seeing a mortal give a god a handshake.”
“I’m so sorry he’s like this,” She said, defeat in her voice as Ben rushed to defend himself.
“What? I’m literally just being polite here. This is like as guiltless as I get.”
“Haha, you’ve done nothing wrong, child of Myriad, it’s just not the first thing a mortal would typically think to do, pay it no mind. Anyway, Slareth, do you think you can find anything from here?”
“No, there’d be no traces for me to track here, I think we’ll have to actually do that.”
At that, Baphel gave a nod, opening a hole in space for them to all walk through, ending up in a familiar place that lacked decent memories for either Ben or Thera.
For Ben, it was the place that Thera had been taken by an invader, having her mana constantly drained for reasons neither of them knew, while for Thera it was the place Ben had almost died, only managing to pull through thanks to the strength of the people around him as well as the help of the gods. Neither liked being there, but thankfully it wasn’t long as Slareth only cast his eyes around the ground, smelling the earth as he went and pointed.
“Take us a kilometer that way and I’ll check again after.”
The spatial god did as he was asked, opening a hole for them to go through, even if the three gods seemed instantly concerned, with that fact becoming greater and greater at each stop. They picked a destination and got there, only for Slareth to give a new one to go to again and again, with Ben eventually breaking down and asking.
“So what’s the problem here and how worried should we be?”
Anailia gave a tired shake of her head when he spoke as the trip seemed to wear on the gods. “This is too easy, which points to you being right unfortunately.”
“Um, meaning?”
“Even though Slareth is a god who rules over these things, he’s finding traces to point us towards after months when none of us nor the investigators we’d sent could find before. It speaks to the idea that a god must have been blocking them,” She told him before speaking aloud to the sky. “Helori, what of the ones you’re keeping an eye on?”
“Alright, keep watch while we move. If they try anything, call the others.”
“Oh infinite hells,” Slareth muttered as the conversation ended and they reached their next destination. “Anailia, we’ve got a problem.”
“Of course we do,” She muttered. “What is it?”
“There was a settlement here.”
The eyes of Anailia and Baphel went wide at the statement but neither questioned the accuracy of it, and that left only two options. Either they were demon worshipers like they’d originally feared, potentially in line with an evil god that had somehow joined them without any realizing, or they were something much, much worse.
“Tell me we aren’t talking about a settlement of full-fledged invaders,” Baphel asked, fearing the worst and bringing Ben and Thera into the worries of the gods. “With things about to kick off and the chances of them already having the system, what would we even do in a situation like that?”
“I don’t know,” The other god admitted honestly. “Some traces seem similar and others not, but the fact that I can’t be certain one way or another is worrying enough.”
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The three gods looked to one another and with one mind began moving faster. Even if Ben was wrong about the demons being part of the system now, all of them knew that it was bad, it was just a matter of extremes.
As they rushed through portals one at a time, narrowing it down a kilometer with each jump as they tried to break the distance between them and whatever they were hunting, eventually Slareth called them to a stop.
“Anailia, it looks like it's on you now,” He said as he pointed into the distance.
“How far?”
“We landed in a good spot. If you start drawing them in, we should see them in a minute.”
She gave a nod and stretched out a hand towards where she’d been pointed, leaving Ben and Thera to feel the surroundings flood with mana as she did, showing off just what it meant to be the goddess of a race that had charm magic.
Unlike the passive effects any of those who worshiped her suffered through, she was completely controlled in the act, her power not being spread around her but instead directed, nor did it take in everything in its path, but focusing in on the one creature she wanted to target, the herd of forty demons rushing to them.
Ben was happy to stand back when he saw them, more than ready to let the gods deal with what was to come than to stand anywhere close to the combat zone as Thera held her staff at the ready, prepared to fight if need be, but it never came to that. With no action behind it to show she’d done a thing other than the feeling of mana rising through the woods, all of the demons before them collapsed fast asleep, instantly killing the tension as she turned to nod at him.
“Alright, if you’d give them a look we can know just how bad things are going to be for us.”
He was still feeling hesitant as he walked up to the closest one, but both the gods and Thera were sticking to him, all ready to defend him in the unlikely event that something went wrong as placed his hands on the beast and connected to it.
Its mind was a brutal experience, being filled with what seemed like an instinctual bloodlust that he ignored in favour of focusing in on the skills on its soul, swearing as he did.
“You know, I remember being told that demons were natural life and death magic users and I just filed that info away without giving it a second glance,” He muttered, the gods understanding where this was going and the fact that it served as absolute proof that he was seeing the system on their souls as he turned to them. “I just don’t know why it didn’t click later. Why don’t people know these things are natural soul magic users?”
It was disgustingly clear in his mind, even if it was a variant he didn’t understand, with the skill clearly labeled as ‘minor soul magic’. Still, the implications were horrifying from what he knew of it and it made him want to finish these off and leave as fast as possible.
It was Anailia who answered him, complicated emotions written across the face she was using as she did. “They don’t possess soul magic in its truest form and given what the average mortal knows about it hearing that would only cause a panic. What does the system call it?”
“Minor soul magic.”
“That makes sense,” She nodded. “Normally for combined magics the true form is the awakened form with the step below it has the prefix low, so I guess a magic two steps lower is considered minor. Either way, at the first tier it’s nothing to worry about, it's a magic they can mostly only use on themselves, both to keep themselves alive in a fight as well as advance to the next stage in their development when it gets strong enough. In a sense, it could be considered less useful than either basic life or death magic.”
To Ben it was an annoying revelation, but to Thera it was a brutal shock. One of the most revered magics to exist, a magic that was being used to try and raise up whatever powerful people it could, and she was just getting to learn that the world's enemies could all use it. She didn’t know how to react to hearing it and said nothing, but Ben could detect her worry as he looked at her and spoke up to ease her mind.
“I suppose this might actually be a good thing,” He mused. “If it can only be used to heal themselves and help with their growth in their current stage then that means it can’t be used for attacks, right?”
“At least not in the way typical life or death magic could be, though things change if any of them awaken to the next stage. Either way, there’s nothing to be done about it. For now, both of you should take advantage of this,” Anailia told them, gesturing to the sleeping demons and making her intentions clear as the other two gods continued their investigation, not leaving them but opening more gates in the area to look through to try and figure out where to go next as both Ben and Thera got to work collecting the waiting experience in front of them.
Thera hesitated at first, feeling the effects of what the world had been calling the sorrow until that point but did her best to push past it, using her magic to take them out one by one, while Ben pulled out his knife, placing one of the soul sealing mana crystals he’d created within it and got to work stabbing into the closest beast.
He watched the crystal light up, a sure sign that it had done as the enchantments on it were designed as the demon lost its life and he couldn’t help but feel elated as he moved on to the next, not changing his crystal to learn the next bit he needed to. Just how many they could hold.
He moved from one sleeping demon to the other, getting to six before the crystal stopped glowing with his kills, letting him know that it had reached its maximum capacity.
So it’s nothing compared to Myriad with his seemingly limitless space, but then building a god is kind of a ridiculous benchmark from the beginning, and given just how small of a mana crystal I’m using for storage this is pretty great in the end. Not sure if I could actually do anything with a crystal with multiple souls though so let's move on to filling crystals with just one.
He had two more crystals already set up with more mana batteries in his bag he could enchant to hold souls so he took one out, working on setting it up as he killed two more demons, getting a soul in each one to make use of before the next was ready and got one in it too. From there he set up a fourth but only as he took the time to kill more of the demons that were collapsed around him. He wouldn’t be able to get all of them after all and he wanted the experience.
It was as the fourth one was done and he filled it with another soul that he heard the notifications ringing out in his head.
“Oh freaking finally,” He muttered, more than pleased with the result. He’d been getting good experience with it in the trial, but in his day-to-day life he simply didn’t do things that would help it grow. Getting it done felt like a weight had been lifted and it seemed that Thera had completed hers as well from the way she was at his side, not touching the remaining ten demons, so he reached his hand into his pocket to take out his job crystal, both to finally take master craftsman and to let Thera choose whatever she desired next, only stopping at the cursing of the gods to their side as they opened a new portal.
“Hey, I’m not really sure what’s going on here but we need to do something about it,” Baphel yelled out to Anailia, drawing all of them to the hole in space he’d created and the chaos going on at the other side.