What I had just done was impossible. Not simply difficult or requiring high levels of energy refinement - it was impossible. No one could bring the dead back to life. It went against the laws of reality. The dead were gone.

At least that’s how it was supposed to be.

When his eyes met mine, all the fear and confusion previously sketched across his newly-fashioned head vanished. Where there had been fear, there was now worship. Instead of confusion, determination. He bowed at my feet, and I vaguely noticed the tunneller clamping both its jaws around the goat creature’s shoulders.

“My Queen,” the resurrected man said, his voice suddenly raspy and ancient. “Tell me your desires.”

I didn’t respond, still reeling from how I’d apparently broken the fabric of reality and somehow changed the man’s fate.

“What are you?” I whispered, low enough that he shouldn’t have been able to hear.

He heard. “I am whatever you want me to be.”

[Welcome to the Orpheus System, Awakener. You have achieved the minimal requirements for entry into heaven's system.]

This was a new voice. A deep, almost melodic male voice, not the monotonous one from before.

“This is blasphemy against the Gods!” Gideon shouted, his accusations repeated in screams from the audience.

Intermixed with the accusations of heresy and trickery, I could hear very different… accusations that I wasn’t sure I liked much more than being a blasphemer.

“It’s the saintess.”

“The saintess is here.”

“The goddess of life has sent to us a messenger.”

Different voices collided with each other as I watched the audience high above me begin to turn toward each other. Loud voices and angry faces at first. Then, slowly, patches of arguing onlookers broke out into brawls.

I nearly broke out in a genuine laugh of disbelief. How religious were the folk in this city for them to believe I could have ever been the saintess of anything? True, I didn’t view myself as a villain, but I certainly was no shining beacon of divine will.

I was not a saintess or a villain; I was merely a survivor, ruler of my own path.

If only they could see the Queen of Rot title oh so graciously forced upon me by the system.

The goat creature staggered when it finally broke through the rock slabs. It was too late. The tunneller, expecting the slabs to break, pounced the moment the creature was off balance. Blood sprayed like a geyser as both mouths bit down on both sides of the goat’s head, causing the thing’s skull to collapse inward. I wanted to vomit.

I raised my sword in Gideon’s direction, the sight of him a stark difference from the gloating noble a moment earlier. He now looked as confused as the man kneeling at my knees had upon awakening. Gideon’s brows were scrunched in thought, and I could see his eyes constantly flickering from me to the area where I knew the rich and noble were. The section was at the arena’s peak and jutted out overhead, the sun above us all blocked by a golden embellished overhang.

He raised his sword in a tentative manner, his lips forming words too far away for me to hear. I doubted he was speaking to me anyway.

Taking advantage of his distracted focus, I wrapped both my hands and sword in the new black and white swirling Soul Weaver energy and launched myself over the fifty feet or so separating us. Much like the goat creature, he’d been caught off guard.

Gideon raised his ice-covered arms up in defense just a fraction late, and my empowered hands slammed into his chest. That should have greatly injured him if not straight killed him.

Instead, I found myself having phased through the man. Not a scratch on him. Gideon turned around, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. We just stared at each other for a moment. And then, without a sound, he collapsed to the ground. His life energy fled the vessel like it was being evaporated.

The energy fled toward me. Toward the reddish-white ball sitting in the palm of my left hand that absorbed every last drop. The more energy sucked into the ball, the more drained Gideon’s soulless body became. Little by little, it became nothing more than a sunken husk. I probably could have stopped the absorption. I knew instinctively that I could have.

I didn’t.

I once knew some nobles who refused to kill, believing it would turn them into the very evil they fought against. They were all dead, and that belief was bullshit. They died with their honor intact, but they died all the same.

Gideon was an enemy. My enemy. If he hadn’t died from my mysterious new abilities, he would still have died from a blade through his heart.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

When I finally finished draining Gideon, his heart stopped. At the same moment, a shrill scream pierced through the noise of the stadium. It wasn’t so much the woman had screamed louder than everything else. It was the pain in her voice, the desperate disbelief mixing with the pressure of high-tier energy coalescing into something I had only heard described as physical sound.

“No!” The woman cried, her voice clear with tears. “Damien, no!”

[A large amount of spirit energy has been collected. Absorb energy?]

The gates on either side of the arena that each team of slaves had entered parted with an uncaring slam. At least a hundred soldiers from both directions flooded into the arena. Some with swords at the ready, some with crossbows, all looking… hesitant.

It wasn’t fear exactly. At least, it wasn't a fear of me. Fear of their Gods? I couldn’t tell.

I stayed calm despite the thudding of my heart and the ache from my core which thirsted for the thrill of battle. I quirked an eyebrow at the approaching soldiers as nonchalantly as I could. By the looks on their worried faces, maybe I even pulled it off.

“Is this how you greet your saintess?” I asked, holding what was probably a physical manifestation of Gideon’s soul in my hand. “Should I ask the Goddess to strike down all her nonbelievers?”

That stopped them cold, and I tutted.

“You should show more deference to a messenger of your Go-“

“Enough with this nonsense,” screamed that same shrill voice from earlier. I turned to face its owner. It was a tall, scrawny woman with a sunken face and an overly large nose. Her blue eyes and cheeks were stained wet with tears. It looked disturbing in contrast to the woman’s prim golden-purple dress that hung an inch above her similarly colored shoes.

Next to her, looking not particularly perturbed, was an older man with the same colors, though he wore a large crown on his head. I noticed at that point a thin circlet was on the woman’s. The man had the silver remains of a once youthful head of hair and a beard of silver hair with golden flecks.

In between the two was a young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with golden hair to her waist. Light blue eyes stared out at the arena dispassionately. Almost bored. Only the man had any semblance of combat training, though I could tell both women had been rigorously schooled in the etiquette of royalty. It was in the way they walked. In the way their body moved with their legs, yet their head remained almost still. In the way their eyes seemed to try to look beyond the facade of Lilliana.

Ah. What had the man told Chella the previous night? That princess… Aurelia? Aurora? Something like that would be attending the festival?

The situation had quickly escalated further than what I would have preferred. I’d hoped to gain enough attention to attract the arena runners and make a deal with them. An arena, despite its inherent flaws, wouldn’t have been the worst place to train myself before returning to the Silverwater Barony.

Though this situation wasn’t too awful. I could always bring back Gideon - no, Damien. Probably.

As the trio drew nearer, I sketched a bow to the King first, and then the two women who were likely princesses. The taller woman didn’t strike me as a Queen, but just in case, I bowed to her second after the King but before the younger girl to avoid any potential disrespect.

My bows were slight, no more than a respectful dip of my head while keeping my back at a very slight incline. Generally, such a bow was used when greeting an equal. In this world, I had nearly no status. I should have performed a proper curtsy, bowing my head deeply at the end. I scoffed at the idea. They were lucky I even dropped my gaze.

“Your majesty,” I spoke after straightening, ignoring the hysterical woman. Again, I broke the rules of etiquette by initiating a conversation with a higher noble. I didn’t care. And I doubt the king did either considering he was staring at me with developing interest and I was still basically cocooned in gore from the earlier melee. “Are you enjoying the show?”

Like when I taunted Gideon, the audience was as silent as the dead. Listening at the edge of their seats.

Sheep. I thought. These worlds are full of sheep just waiting to leech off the misery of others.

One of the guards who’d entered from the opposite entrance of the royal family took a step forward, his golden suit of armor jostling from the movement. Instantly, the resurrected man who’d been like a statue at my feet sprang up, a sword in his hand. He placed himself between me and the rest of the army, body as steady and determined as one who’d trained their entire life for that singular purpose. The guard halted and looked at his king who shook his head no.

“I can’t say that I am,” the ruler stated flatly. His voice came out weathered and aged, yet held a strength I remembered from when I would hear my father talk. My real father. “You’ve killed my son-in-law.”

The way the king said 'son-in-law' gave me the impression the man was less annoyed by the death of the man than having to call him son-in-law.

“Do you want me to bring him back?” I asked, tossing the manifested reddish-white soul into the air a few times.

The King shook his head with a glance toward the still-nameless resurrected man. “Not if he turns into whatever that is.” He paused and then looked at me. “Who are you? What are you?”

“I am Lilliana Silverwater, second daughter of Baron Silverwater, and fifth in line to the Silverwater Barony,” I declared to all who could hear. With my energy-enhanced volume, that was everyone. “I was wrongfully detained in this arena and I demand satisfaction.” I nudged Gideon, Damien, whatever his name was with my foot. “Though I’ve received some measure of satisfaction already.”

Based on The History of Lysoria, it was commonplace for nobles who had been wronged by another noble to request satisfaction; some type of restitution for their injuries. If the King acknowledged me as a daughter of the Silverwater house in Lysoria, my chances of living went up significantly. Or, at the very least, I wouldn't be executed for killing a member of the royal family.

“You’re… a noble lady?” The younger woman said, cradling the other sobbing woman in her arms. She looked doubtfully at my gore-covered figure and I shrugged.

“Is it so hard to believe one would fight for their life, even a noble’s daughter?” I responded. “Would you not have fought?”

“Of course, I would have!” The girl shot back. “But yo-.”

The King put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “The daughter of a Baron and the Saintess for the Goddess Persephone; those are both very heavy claims, fighter. To claim both nobility and divinity have been lost to a slaver's market is quite... perplexing.” He motioned to me and the group of guards to my rear. “Let them take you back into the dungeons. I will see if your words are true. If you have lied to me, you will be hung for attempting to lie to the Crown of Cael. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes, I do, your majesty.”