"How dare you... How dare you!" Liza was enraged.

The moisture in the air all congealed around the Seeker and turned into several pikes of pure water. Each one was spinning at a speed so fast that only Lone and Johnathon could even tell that they were rotating.

Johnathon felt his blood run cold as he saw the look in Lone's eyes. "M-Mighty Ninetails, she means no offence! I swear! She is simply emotional and I can guarantee that were she in the right state of m-"

"I'm perfectly fine, Johnathon!" Liza screamed. "I'm going to kill this vile murderer!"

Lone laughed. "Me? A vile murderer? I guess, sure, you could call me that. Don't forget who tried to steal my item and then tried to murder me first though."

Liza had no words for that, so instead, she used a good chunk of her mana to summon thousands of tiny water droplets - each of which was as sharp as an epic-ranked dagger.

Lone laughed once again. "Bone Armour." His body was covered in a thick layer of his jagged black and blue bones. Underneath his helmet, he was grinning. "I'd love to see if you can kill me."

'Soph. Barriers around everyone. Even the worshippers who're frozen in fear. I don't want the partially-innocent to die due to this lunatic's stupidity. Also, If I actually do die, rewind time and tell me what happened. I'll be sure to end her as soon as we reach this point again via a Mental Destruction,' Lone requested of the girl by his side.

The girl frowned heavily and felt tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. 'I... I will, but please... Please don't die, Lone. I-I know you want to increase the rank of your skills, but I don't ever want to watch you die, e-even if I can reverse time...'

Lone's heart both ached and felt warm. He knew he was being selfish here, and Soph was entirely correct, but he still wanted to do it. It was very rare that an XXX-ranker would be willing to attack him with the intent to kill, and Lone was certain that he'd get the most benefit skill-level-wise from being attacked with such force and intent behind Liza's magic.

'I don't plan to, Soph. I'm just asking in case the worst happens. I trust my body and my Bone Armour. Don't worry, I'll be fine,' Lone replied confidently.

Soph was still pouting, but she nodded her head. 'Okay. I trust you, Lone. I've always trusted you and I always will... But I'll always worry, since... Since I love you.'

Again, Lone felt his heart getting squeezed by Soph's touching words. He wanted to scoop her up and kiss her, but that would have to wait until later. 'I love you too.'

He refocused his attention on Liza who had created even more fully-charge water magic spells now before he arrogantly taunted her. "Come on, you crazy bitch. Gonna use all of that magic, or are you just putting on a fancy water show for us?"

"Eager to die?! Fine!" Liza yelled in response.

At the moment that she was just about to direct her spells towards Lone, Swind felt something. His sixth sense was telling him to lock down Johnathon's movements immediately. Without hesitating, he unleashed his own Ascending Aura and used it in full force to lock to strongest Seeker in place.

The man's eyes widened and he was clearly panicking, but no one paid him any heed save for Swind and Lone. Swind kept an eye on him while Lone could simply tell that his scaley friend was preventing the XXX-ranker from interfering.

Now, unlike Lone who had the proper skill for Ascending Aura, Swind did not. He had the Ascending Might skill, but he didn't have the more hyper-focused one for the aura part of that skill. This meant that he could suppress it the same as Lone, but targetting it specifically like him was a bit crude.

As a side-effect from this, the teens, Soph, and the worshippers too, all felt a very slight desire to offer prayers to Swind. Liza was unaffected due to having a very powerful soul as an XXX-ranker mage, while Eolande, Breena and Lone had advanced enough races for the aura to simply not work on them at this level.

All of this had happened in the blink of an eye, so within the next second, Lone was assaulted by the thousands of water magic spells that Liza had cast and gathered.

Lone grit his teeth as he felt his bone armour being ripped apart. He steadied his footing so he didn't fall over, but besides that, his armour was easily able to repair itself automatically far faster than Liza was able to damage it.

'Huh. I guess when compared to Ythmagobla's Darkness Breath, this level of magic can't do shit to my Bone Armour... I guess I'll remove the gauntlets and helmet. At this rate, she'll run out of mana long before I can gain any real benefits. I'd like to maximize my Water Magic Resistance and my Basic Regen here. Looks like I really was being too cautious. For a triple-X-ranker, she's weak as fuck.' Clearly, Lone's perception was heavily warped.

The only XXX-rankers that he'd known until now were both hundreds of thousands of years old. They had sat on the edge of Divinity for literal ages and were incredibly powerful. There was also Van, the general of Ythmagobla, who was physically weak, but an incredibly tricky foe who could evade Lone thanks to his immense skill as a soul oracle.

Liza was barely a few centuries old and only just become an XXX-ranker. There was also the factor of Lone's absurd stats to consider. No SS-ranker on all of Altros should physically be able to possess as many base stat points as he did. His Growth Accelerator was - in this regard - undoubtedly, his most powerful unique skill.

Lone's hands and face got ripped to shreds repeatedly while his Basic Regeneration healed him at the same rate as he was being damaged.

Perhaps ten minutes passed like that as Liza bombarded him with her water magic. Eventually, she had run out of mana. She held her head as it throbbed in pain from her having overworked her mana organs.

Lone looked at her and shook his head. He dismissed his bone armour and approached the woman. "I thought you'd be able to last longer than that. Oh well. I do understand your anger, by the way. I won't use your soul as thanks for boosting my skill levels."

With that said, he used Mental Destruction on her to end her life.

Silence filled the hall as Lone returned to his friends' side. "Saturn, did you already collect those two's souls?" he asked in references to Archbishop Samson and Micah.

The Divine Soul Prison happily bobbed around and hummed to give Lone affirmation. "Good." He looked at Johnathon and said, "You've used your first chance, so I'd be careful if I were you. Try to hurt any of my friends in retaliation, and mark my words, the Church of the Primals will stop existing soon enough. Call me extreme, but a church that steals from others and tries to murder me for no good reason doesn't deserve to stick around much longer."

Johnathon swallowed hard in response. He could hardly move thanks to Swind's aura, but Lone could tell that the only remaining Seeker understood him from the look in his eyes.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Okay. Let's go. You too, Mr Guard. We'll escort you to the Adventurer's Guild with those women," Lone said casually as he took Soph's hand and made for the exit.

Soph dismissed all of the barriers she'd created and enjoyed the warmth of Lone's palm and a few of his tails that she'd grabbed with her other hand.

The teens followed Lone's group with a mixture of fear and awe while Johnathon and the worshippers were left in the cathedral's main hall to deal with Lone's mess.

----------------------------------------

As they were returning to the Adventurer's Guild to hand in their S-ranked quests and deal with the ex-hostages, Lone decided to look over his newly-updated status as well as his skill level-ups.

Status Name: Lone Immortus Sex: Male Age: 27 Level: 2,395 [+894] Species: Foxkin Rank: SS Race: Ascending Foxkin HP: 69,190/69,190 [+23,120] SP: 182,145/201,030 [+35,800] MP: 402,301/636,850 [+90,400] [New!] DP: 64,320/64,320 WF: 1,500/1,500   Basic Stats Strength: 9,715 [+1,539] Vigour: 6,919 [+2,312] Dexterity: 7,984 [+1,200] Agility: 8,282 [+944] Vitality: 20,103 [+3,580] Luck: 778 [+201] Secret Stats Charm: 564 [+212] Charisma: 116 [+67] Magic Power: 63,685 [+9,040] [New!] Divine Power: 6,432 Rage: 5 Control: 940

'So close to triple-S-rank... Soph's Immortality it within arm's reach now,' Lone thought with joy.

'Still... a completely new energy type, huh? I wonder if divine power is required to use holy magic? Cross never had any, but then again, he seemed to be wholly focused on his physical strength judging from his stats. I wonder if Hazel has this stat? I've never bothered to ask her or the other kids' to tell me their statuses before...' Lone wondered.

His younger sister raised an eyebrow in response to Lone's thoughts. "Yes. I have divine power. Not nearly as much as you do, obviously. And yes, it's needed to use holy magic. Just like how the faith stat is needed to perform daoism-based skills or how worldforce is needed to use world skills. As far as I know, soul oracle skills are the only ones out of the more uncommon skill-types that don't need a unique energy source."

Lone smiled wryly. Of course she had read his mind. Regardless, she'd answered his question. "Thanks. That's good to know."

Eolande wore a confused face. "Did something happen?"

Hazel shrugged. "Lone got a new energy type from those religious idiots, he was thinking about how it worked, I heard him, then answered. Simple as that."

Scott laughed. "Or so she says. It's best to assume that whenever Hazel says something to herself or someone else that makes no sense, then it means that she's commenting on someone's thoughts."

Eolande nodded. "Hmm. It's not the easiest thing to get used to, but considering everything absurd that Husband does, I doubt it'll be too long before this is natural to ignore as well."

Swind had some private thoughts on the matter. 'But everything Mr Immortus does is fairly normal, no?'

Hazel rolled her eyes at the Lemurian's... bizarre mindset.

Lone and Soph were ignoring this little conversation. One was busy savouring Lone's fluffiness, while the other was reading his system notifications.

Congratulations! the host's passive [Water Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 2.

He'd never been hit with water magic ever since he and Soph were on the goblin island southwest of Milindo, so it was refreshing to Lone to finally have a chance to upgrade this skill. That feeling quickly faded as he was overwhelmed with messages for the skill levelling up.

Once he'd reached the end of the constant notifications, he was honestly sick of seeing the words 'Water magic Resistance'.

Congratulations! the host's passive [Water Magic Resistance] has levelled up! It is now Master Level 4.

Passive Skill: Water Magic Resistance

A skill that allows the host to resist all forms of Water Magic.

Water Magic used on the host will be weakened by 95% [+90%].

[New!] Water Magic skills which have a negative effect or would cause damage to the host, now have a 10% chance of failing to cast and will result in the caster suffering the skill's effects instead.

Cost: N/A Mastery: Master Level 4 [+43]

'Oh, that's awesome! I didn't expect the percent to jump up so much. I'm really regretting not tanking that holy magic spell now... Oh well. I'll definitely have to take a lot of practical classes in The Adacemy to grind up my other magic resistances,' Lone thought.

Congratulations! The host's unique subskill [Bone Armour] has levelled up! It is now Master Level 5.

Congratulations! The host's unique subskill [Bone Armour] has levelled up! It is now Master Level 6.

Lone honestly wasn't expecting two levels considering how little damage he'd felt from his armour, but after a moment of thought, he reasoned that the recently added effect from becoming master-rank to auto-heal free of cost was simply too strong.

Congratulations! The host's unique skill [Basic Regeneration] has levelled up! It is now Master Level 8.

Congratulations! The host's unique skill [Basic Regeneration] has levelled up! It is now Master Level 9.

'Only two more levels until my first unique skill can evolve... I really hope it does evolve. Basic can't possibly be the first and last version of this skill, right?' Lone joked to himself.

Finally, all that was waiting to be checked were the three new skills he'd effectively stolen from the Seeker, Liza.