I watched the traitor as he slowly drained the Divine Spark from the forest, trying to process the implications of the betrayal.
Not the betrayal itself, of course. I had long learned people were willing to sell others for their benefit, and concepts like honor and loyalty were mostly transitional.
I was more interested in the possession of the acorn, and the crystal buried inside to steal the Divine Spark, the exact copy of the one that Undead possessed, but with some organic layer to cover up the similarity.
I didn’t react, because I wanted to check something first. While the traitor was busy stealing my Divine Spark, I started to examine the remains of the elves that had been betrayed. Particularly, their bags.
I wanted to see if that crystal acorn was something unique. A tendril of mana that sneaked into their bags soon discovered eight more, confirming that, no they were not unique. Moreover, five of them were filled with Necrotic Sparks, gathered from the undead.
I drained them.
{+145 Purified Spark}
{-5 Nature Spark, God Forest}
Not exactly a treasure, but nothing to be scoffed at either. Far more than I was losing.
Once I finished purifying those, I turned my attention to the real issue. Why they were working hard to gather Divine Spark. I had initially assumed that the undead was stealing the Nature Sparks to protect their dominion, but what the elf had mentioned while bragging to his dying friend suggested another option.
They were selling them to others. For a good price as well, considering the timing of the traitor. The existence of a buyer was troubling, adding another layer to the ongoing battle, not just in the current plane, but also in other planes.
It explained why I was seeing many planes being invaded by the undead. Some mysterious group was supporting them — of which I had some suspicions, but I didn’t want to overreach and miss something important.
Worse, that mysterious group was probably playing both sides, providing them with identical containers, and absorbing the Divine Spark from both sides as payment for their services. I needed to target those buyers.
I just needed to ascertain the identity of the buyer and make sure they were who I was suspecting. Luckily, I had the target to question, a target that probably have the buyer prepared if the intensity of his betrayal was any indicator.
The perfect target to tail. The only problem, I didn’t want him to drain all of the divine sparks I had on the forest. Easy to solve, I thought as I flooded the crystal with my mana, and triggered its limiter, giving the signal it was full.
At the same time, I ordered the forest to stop radiating nature mana, and instead channeled their production to the underground storage wards. Together, it gave the sign that all divine spark was stolen successfully.
“Huh, I expected the forest to have even more,” he said, then shrugged. “Maybe it drained faster than I expected.”
I said nothing, and waited to see if he would try to create some kind of fake battle. He did not, confirming his intention not to return. Instead, he climbed to the roc, and took flight.
I didn’t follow him immediately, but instead pulled some necrotic mana from the environment to create a fake battle scene at a small distance and dumped the bodies there. I didn’t want the other elves to get suspicious. Not because I cared about the life of the traitor, but because I didn’t want them going around and blaming the tribal elves.
I still needed them.
Luckily, creating a fake battlefield just took a minute, and soon, I was caught up with the traitor.
His path was interesting. Rather than going toward the center, was going toward the planar edge, which reinforced my initial suspicions about the source.
After an hour of the persistent following, and soon, and soon, I watched him stop in front of a magically protected area. It was just the first layer, some kind of identification layer combined with an assault ward if the first one triggered. I deciphered it in seconds … because I recognized the magical tradition the wards had been constructed…
A very familiar tradition.
The Eternals.
“Hello, my old friends,” I said, a dark smirk appearing on my face as I came across the source of my trouble at such a great distance from home. I was getting suspicious due to signs of someone purchasing any kind of Divine Spark regardless of the type, as the System had the ability to absorb them — while the Gods either lacked it completely, or their method was inefficient enough to necessitate a trade.
Either way, an ambitious ploy.
Unfortunately, entering there was not exactly an easy job. If it wasn’t for my familiarity with their unique brand of warding, I wouldn’t even dare to try, and even with the experience, I couldn’t just make an attempt.
It was not a bunch of undead I could just destroy before escaping. They had much more flexibility. “I wonder if they forget to defend underground again,” I murmured as I started to dive down, slowly creating a tunnel. It was the method I had used the previous times I had fought against them with great impact, and I saw no reason for it to suddenly change.
Unfortunately, the process was much slower this time. I lacked the assistance of my skills and my exaggerated stats, but the wards were still as strong as the ones they had used during their training exercise. Worse, I didn’t have access to Earth mana, which made digging a much slower process.
Still, I resisted the temptation to hurry up. I slowly dug through the wards, not caring about the fate of the traitor one way or another. Though, once I had reached deep enough, I set up another warded teleportation beacon, and even teleported to check Seldanna. Through our connection, I could feel that she was safe, but I didn’t want to take the risk.
Luckily, her escorts didn’t have any traitors — or if did, they didn’t have a reason to attack.
Once ensuring there was no immediate danger, I returned to my long and thankless task of digging a tunnel deep into the underground. A long, exhausting work. Not the physical kind, but the attention I had to constantly pay. I held back any possible complaints, and kept my attention on the task.
“So complicated,” I murmured once I reached the ward, examining the mana flow. One advantage, I was almost sure that the ward was not established by a caster, but through an item. Even better, it was not as overwhelmingly strong as the defensive wards they had used for the training, nor it had that constant detection feature.
Together, it allowed me to slowly unravel the weaker defenses underground string by string, creating an entrance that was just big enough for me to stumble through. Once passed, I used the earlier trick, and followed the shell of the ward, moving miles and miles inside.
Until I finally came against a secondary ward. It was much stronger, and it was trickier to bypass as it was physically integrated into the foundations of the fortress I had found myself in. Still, bypassing was equally straightforward, just required more time. Half an hour rather than a few minutes, but I had enough time to exchange some for safety.
After some careful magical tinkering, I was inside, in the basement of the castle. I dared to push without more preparation, because the fortress didn’t prevent teleportation — well, it tried, but nothing that couldn’t be penetrated by wasting a few thousand points of mana.
And, if there was one thing I wasn’t lacking, it was mana.
Once inside the second ward, I found myself in the bowels of their fortress. Bowels that were protected by layers and layers of wards from the inside. Too bad that my access had ruined most of their access. For a moment, I wondered about the benefits of using copious amounts of explosive wards to ruin their life. Though it was more of a fantasy than an actual objective.
It didn’t take long for that desire to lose its allure, because soon, I felt a unique pull, one from the System, trying to steal my Divine Spark. However, it was much weaker than the usual pull, a shadow of its endless devouring. Ignoring that had been trivial. Yet, that barely took my attention….
I had a much more important issue. I felt a stirring in my soul space, the connection once again alive. And, just like that, I had access to the System once again.
What a surprise.
{Strength: 16 Charisma: 16
Precision: 16 Perception: 16
Agility: 16 Manipulation: 16
Speed: 16 Intelligence: 16
Endurance: 16 Wisdom: 16}
{Purified Divine Spark: 2537}
{Pseudo-HP: 2869 Mana: 4140}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Forest - 1794}
Elven Priestess - 70}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
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