System Administrator Realm
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"She's going to die," Yznera pointed out the obvious.
Wyxnos missed the calm and solitude of the previous centuries when nobody came here to bother him. And Yznera was teasing, no, taunting him to save the Anomaly.
"Yes, the shark bit her hard. Twelve million negative HP," Wyxnos replied. While he couldn't read the Anomaly's status directly, he knew {Self-Sacrifice} would leave her at zero HP and he could see the damage notification of the Carcinodon perfectly well.
They were in an accelerated state where time in Yznarian below slowed down to a crawl. They could have whole conversations in a fraction of a second though it costed energy. Right now, they needed it, though. Loki's envoy murdered Nurha-Boenir out of the blue and got herself eaten by the God of Monsters' pet shark.
Yznera sang, "I wonder when she will reincarnate, and where. Will poor Bundi be able to find her before he expires? I reckon humans live dreadfully short lives," she had a predatory grin on her lips.
Wyxnos trembled with rage, "You plotted this."
"No. It was all her. I just encouraged her to get rid of that abomination," the Goddess retorted with a most innocent face.
A flash of light denounced a newcomer. Galbarar made himself present.
"She achieved a great feat with a Light spell," the deity bellowed. "Glory to the Sun, she dealt over one trillion damage with that spell. I award her one rank of {Indomitable}."
Galbarar move was calculated. Recognizing the achievement would make the System divert more resources to his domain, more than what he spent awarding the Perk. Wyxnos looked at Yznera.
"Galbarar's motive is his own," she evaded the question. "I won't take any side on this matter. You were the one that handed over a Divine Core to the mortal. Are you willing to risk your gambit go to naught?"
Probably another rank of {Indomitable} would be enough to allow her to live. No. She would need two unless her Endurance was over one hundred-twenty and he was pretty sure it wasn't. She picked a Magical Path and a Mystical Race. Her Endurance gains were meager. Two ranks would put her dying threshold in the tens of millions, enough to survive. If her {Cyst Hibernaton} Perk triggered.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. She would have to heal all that HP back before the Perk let her go. It would take decades. And then she would be in the trench. No, wait. She used {Self-Sacrifice}. She would lose a level per month until she reached level zero and died. That meant she might expire if the regeneration was too slow.
Quickly doing some math, Wyxnos made a decision. He might be throwing good money after the bad, but he was too involved to back down now. He needed to make the revenge match between Bundeus' mortal incarnation and the Anomaly happen or the Broodmother wouldn't leave him alone. So long they met and fought, he had no stakes on the result.
"I grant her two ranks of {Indomitable} and a special Perk," Wyxnos said in defeat. "System, create the Perk: Invigorating Cyst Hibernation. Description: During Cyst Hybernation, recover HP at a normal rate. Disregard all negative HP recovery modifiers."
> ACKNOWLEDGED. Granting achievement now.
Wyxnos looked at the God of Justice, "Galbarar, do you mind granting your Perk after mine? I'm granting three, you are granting only one."
The toga-clad deity nodded, "That is fair, Wyxnos. I agree and shall improve my boon as well."
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I came to my senses on a ledge of the trench. I spent some time in a daze, confused. Shouldn't I be dead? The shark ate me. Gloating over the death of my enemy, I forgot about the Carcinodon. Yes. Detection told me I was in a pile of shark poop but...
My HP was full. I felt the shell of the {Cyst Hibernation} Perk breaking and flaking around me. I'd cheated death once more. Better check my notifications. I skipped the damage from the shark's bite, a critical hit, by the way, and went to the aftermath of my god-slaying one-shot spell.
> For dealing more than 1 trillion HP of damage with a single attack, Wyxnos granted you the Perks:
>
> Invigorating Cyst Hybernation (unique): During Cyst Hibernation, recover HP at a normal rate. Disregard all negative HP recovery modifiers.
>
> Indomitable IV (very rare): Multiply the negative HP threshold for dying by 10,000.
>
> Indomitable V (very rare): Multiply the negative HP threshold for dying by 100,000.
>
> For dealing over 1 trillion damage with a Light Spell, Galbarar granted you the Perk:
>
> Solar Indomitability (unique): Multiply the negative HP threshold for dying by one million. You cannot die of negative HP if under direct sunlight.
That meant I needed to reach negative seventy-six million HP to die. That's why I needed to bring the damage to Nur-Had-a-Boner to the stratosphere. It would be too easy to cheat death just by buying indomitable levels. Although I knew it only had five ranks. Galbarar granted me a unique Perk to let me live.
While I was thankful, I had to be suspicious. Why did they want me to live? And how long did I spent hibernating? A quick check of my resources told me I had twenty thousand MP and a meager seven hundred SP. That meant about twenty hours of hibernation. Less than a day. I turned on my mana wellspring at full power and dismayed. Only the Carcinodon was in range and even it was at the extreme range above me.
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I laid down on the ledge and waited for my resources to fill. My MP pool took a whole day to recover. Once I was full, I resumed my previous endeavor. I had a shark to kill. One no longer with a cheat called "divine champion".
As I swam up, I checked my item box. The corpse of the dead god was there. I extracted its Divine Core and stored the body separate from the core. This time the Gods would have to pay through the nose for it. No more nice naive girl.
I went up, [Grandmaster Surreptitiousness] hiding my presence. The Carcinodon was swimming lazily in the widest section of the trench. My hunch was that the shark was so adapted to prowl the depths that it would be too sluggish to fight back Bit's psionic beam. There was no way the guardian urchin could fight back this monstrosity otherwise.
I tried to put a {Death Contract} on the shark and it failed. No longer sentient, not without the divine boon. {Champion's Challenge}, however, worked like a charm. The shark still had no idea I was right above it. I shapeshifted slowly into the largest animal I could that was suitable for the place. An orca dolphin. Poetic, even.
I used my perks. {Dislocate Jaw} allowed me to reach the required size to even attempt to bite the shark's "neck". {Death Blow}, {Arcane Strike}, {Vorpal Bite}, {Assassinate}. Like the good old times. I don't care how many HP you have if you can't live without a head.
** CHOMP to you too, motherfuckah! ***
> You killed level 251 Carcinodon. Exp deferred.
>
> Quest Objective 1 of 2 Completed.
And that's all folks. Thanks for tuning in. Cheap shots for the win.
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Just kidding.
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A month later, we were floating on the ocean's surface. I was due to lose another level but I found a glitch in the Bygone Hero system. I could change Paths and shed a Class level, switching back to [Spell-Singer]. That meant I just got almost a decade more to live. As long as I had levels in the other paths to burn, I would stay at level 117.
"I must get rid of all body parts now. I already cleaned the trench, there is not a single bit of shark flesh down there. Now all that is left is to sterilize this thing."
I was pretty sure the System would turn the shark into a Cancer Slime or something as the tumors kept developing on their own. The shark was dead, but just like some tumors, theirs could survive without the host. Nobody wants magical cancer, thank you.
The urchin volunteered.
With his psionic powers, he created a huge bubble up in the air around me. "Bigger, Bit. This guy is hundreds of yards long." Once the bubble was the right size, I took Marlowe out of the storage and tasked him with maintaining a disintegration field. Then I kept the archmage-golem trapped outside a bubble just inside the psychic one. Alone inside the double-layered barrier, I started to take the shark's parts out of the item box and straight into the disintegration field. First the head, then the body, and finally all the thousands of teeth I collected. Once the last bit of shark was purged from this world, the notification came.
> Quest completed.
>
> You gained:
>
> Two Unique neutral or Nature-related Perks.
>
> Blessings from Yznera and the Five Elder Fairies.
"Well done, Hero," Yznera's voice came from behind me.
"Mother," I said respectfully in Fulgen Elvish. "Did I cause too much of a ruckus up there?" I asked mischievously.
"I'll decline to address the aftereffects of your treachery. Although he had it coming, in my personal opinion," she replied in a hushed tone that screamed 'don't quote me.
"I should've died," I mused dejectedly.
"Yes. Some of us consider you a force for good in this world, despite your patron's... reputation."
"I'm thankful to you, Galbarar, and Wyxnos. I wasn't ready to die yet."
"Yet you used not one but two abilities that demanded your life as the price. I suspect there's more mischief incoming if you were indeed not ready to die, but I won't pry. A secret is only safe if only one person knows it, after all."
I nodded and found a tear rolling down my eye. A month of hard work scrubbing an oceanic trench kept my mind away from what I'd achieved. Rosalinda was avenged, at last. The knot in my throat threatened to choke me. Without much thought, I reached out and hugged the goddess' soft leaf dress. Then I bawled my heart out. Yznera spoke no words. Just her soft hand caressing my sparse hair.
When I finally stopped crying, she spoke, "You carry lifetimes of sorrow. Sometimes I wonder how you keep sane. Hush, child. What you feel is the emptiness of vengeance. You appease your hatred but what's left behind is only void."
"Did he deserve to die, mother?"
"I'm no judge, child. I have no answer for that. But monsters will be left without a patron now. Some of them will weaken until someone takes the domain's mantle."
"Isn't weaker monsters a good thing?"
"Why would it be so? The people of this world are belligerent, drunk in the power of their levels. If they aren't fighting monsters, what will they do with their combat Classes?"
It hit me like a sledgehammer. "Fight each other."
"There you go. This world, without monsters, will be devastated by war. By vengeance. Now tell me, did he deserve to die? Probably. Was it a good thing that he died? Let your conscience answer that for you."
She caressed my head and continued, "You are called the Old Soul but your heart is like a child. It is most curious how much of a person's demeanor is dictated by their bodies. The solution is easy."
"We need a God of Monsters."
"And you hold the key for that."
"I wanted to give this Core to Galbarar. To speed up the Sun's regeneration."
She tugged my chin up so our eyes could meet and smiled. "Why don't you consume it? I know you can gain great power from it."
"I don't want to feed Loki. Even being this close to you is a risk."
"Let me worry about it. No, this Core doesn't belong to Galbarar. And its aspect is different from the Domain you want to reinforce. Monsters are creatures of darkness, after all."
"Then who could be the next God of Monsters?" She didn't answer but looked down, at the gigantic urchin. "Bit?"
"He's old, wise, and a monster himself. I don't see why not. We should bring him into the conversation, though."
The reason for Yznera's visit became clear. She wanted to anoint a new God of Monsters fast because, between monsters and the sentient people, the latter destroyed nature faster than the former. We talked to Bit and he agreed to take the Core for himself. With Yznera's aid, the Guardian Urchin ascended as the new God of Monsters.
"Yes. I want a dozen of your spikes and a hundred of your biggest pincers. When we first met, I really wished to harvest your whole body."
Yznera chuckled. "Greedy mortals."
He shed the spikes and pincers while I quickly tossed them in my {item box}. Each ivory spike was more than twenty meters long.
"I release you from your vow of fealty, Bit. It wouldn't do for a deity to be beholden to a mortal."
It was my time to let a chuckle. "That ain't happening. I'm pretty comfortable with my mortal life. Lives. If anything, I think you were a fool to accept that core."
The psionic chuckle of the god-urchin rang.
I waved at the nothingness as the two deities vanished.
"That we will, my friend. That we will."
Then the bubble holding me in the air vanished and I plummeted down into the open ocean. After I healed myself, I uttered a non-gormandizing groan.
"Time to go back home."