“You’re talking a lot for a pathetic god of corpses and garbage,” I shouted back, once again using the Dragon Avatar to speak.
As far as insults were concerned, it wasn’t exactly the most creative one I could come up with, but it still made him attack me with full force. He was already angry after losing two avatars in a row. Insulting to the basis of his existence pushed his anger even further.
This time, rather than engaging him directly, I dodged the attack and moved toward the center of his domain. “Let’s see how you feel once I start destroying your avatars as well,” he shouted as he turned toward Seldanna.
Interesting statement, making me wonder whether he even knew he was facing two gods — supposedly — at the same time, or the Eternals hid that particular nugget of information from him.
Not exactly impossible.
I didn’t want him tangling with Seldanna. She was inexperienced enough in using her powers that even with her actual body, I wouldn’t expect her to win against another god on neutral ground. And, in the domain of another god, only as an avatar … it would be lucky if she could last a minute.
Luckily, I had the perfect bait. “I wonder how you’ll feel when I use the breach to dump your Divine Spark into the Primordial Aether,” I shouted as I flew away on my dragon, hoping that the possibility of losing more than a million sparks was enough to galvanize him.
After all, he had no idea that his Divine Spark was long gone, purified, and some even turned into stats to empower me further.
“You dare!” he shouted as he immediately changed his direction and started chasing my dragon avatar, the bait working perfectly. A little predictable, but understandable. A million Divine Spark was an impressive amount, particularly considering it had been absorbed perfectly. If he lost it, even capturing two of our avatars wouldn’t make up for it — as Eternals used a very lopsided exchange ratio when it came to trading Divine Spark.
I made a show of trying to rush toward the breach that his avatar was trying to close, only to be knocked away with every attempt. However, ultimately, it was just a trick to have an excuse to visit every part of his plane, my exaggerated mana attacks giving me to perfect cover to hide my detection spells.
Maybe I was a bit paranoid, but I wanted to make sure there was no other Eternal presence that could report some of my more suspicious moves. I had already pushed my luck enough with the secrets I revealed, even pushing my fake identity as an Ancient god to the limit.
Of course, I might have chosen a more reckless strategy if time was working against us, but that was not the case. With every second, his army got smaller while Seldanna continued to expand our nature reserve, creating a bigger hold for life in the domain.
At the same time, his reckless attacks drained quite a bit of the necrotic mana that was stored in the Aether dimension … while a few secret wards I implemented there worked hard to turn the rest into nature mana in some warded packets, growing stronger with each minute.
Ready to go off the moment I confirmed the absence of the Eternals.
Of course, extending the battle meant giving a chance for the Eternals to return, but on that, I was a bit more confident. I had built a layer of detection ward over the planar border, made of tantric mana to make sure it could resist the ravages of Primordial Aether, ready to alert me for their approach.
And, in Primordial Aether, I was confident I could take any forces they would send to a relatively distant location like ours during an emergency — as far as that word has any meaning with the crazy dimensions of Primordial Aether.
Pity that I couldn’t say the same for what they could bring to bear outside the main material plane.
But that was a concern for the far future.
For now, I just needed to defeat my first true divine enemy, which was a great achievement even if he was completely lacking in any true tactical sense, which was only partially about my secret abilities. He was too used to corpse-wave tactics to develop a habit of reading the enemy tactics. Worse, he was too panicked by the prospect of losing his Divine Spark to even question why I was spending hours repeating the same trick again and again.
I doubted that it would be the experience when I faced my next divine opponent. The more I fought against him, the more I started to suspect that his strategic ineptitude was one of the reasons the Eternals supported him.
After all, an unaware puppet was the best one.
I might have pitied his situation … but necromancers, especially ones that had committed enough massacres to reach the position of divinity — whether or not with the help from the Eternals immaterial.
Half a day later, I had managed to scour the plane. I destroyed three wards that belonged to Eternals, though they were empty other than some raw resources and a few basic detection wards, clearly functioning more as listening posts and emergency hideouts.
More importantly, I was confident that I didn’t miss anything else.
Without a warning, I teleported toward the bordering spot that was still being ravaged by Primordial Aether, a consequence of his split attention and the weakness of his avatar. Without a warning, I appeared next to the avatar, draining it aggressively.
[+225,918 Purified Spark]
At the same time, I trigged all the wards I had buried in the Aether dimension. “Now, Seldanna,” I ordered, and she started channeling all the mana she could to the planar border, rapidly turning its structure from necrotic to nature.
Naturally, that allowed even more Primordial Aether to invade the plane.
“Please stop, you’re going to destroy everything,” he shouted. “I surrender.”
I ignored him, or his sudden attempts to escape right into the center of his domain, creating a new dimensional barrier around him with a far smaller domain.
Even going as far as completely pulling back from the domain, leaving it suddenly ownerless. And, just like that, the speed at Seldanna assimilated the plane hastened immensely, new forests appearing each second.
“What a disappointing ending,” I murmured. In his haste to protect himself from what he saw as the inevitable destruction of his plane, he had committed the worst mistake a god could commit. He locked himself in a small domain, surrounded by the domain of another divine.
Essentially, he put himself in the same position as Helga, but in that case, we had driven by a deep calculation based on Helga’s abilities and the unique location of that domain.
His was fueled by poor strategy and cowardice. I had to admit, it ruined my mood to even banter with him. Instead, I created a thick ward around his domain, one that made sure that he would stay pinned and couldn’t go anywhere.
Especially since I didn’t use nature mana, which necrotic mana could fight against in equal grounds; but my unique brand of light mana that was empowered with pseudo-HP, which necrotic mana could fight against about as efficiently as dry paper could fight against fire.
Another silencing ward to keep his pathetic begging hidden, I turned my attention to the rest of the domain. First, to Seldanna. “You can stop,” I called as her avatar appeared next to me.
“Really. How about you let me take this plane, and we can find another for your angel,” she said. Worse, it wasn’t a demand, but a request while Seldanna did her best to look innocent and vulnerable, her avatar turning into soft, gentle flowers immediately.
Having a goddess as a lover was amazing … but also came with complications. Buying gifts, for example, was far more difficult.
“How about I get you a new plane once I understand how the Eternals linked the planes together,” I offered. Which was an unexpected gift from them. With their sudden departure, they didn’t have the time to take back their artifact, giving me a chance to duplicate it.
Not easily, I guessed, but much better than trying to come up with a method myself.
“Deal,” she said, her smile pressed against my cheek and disappeared, showing that, she might have exaggerated her displeasure slightly to earn a promise.
I had to admit, it was well played. She earned herself a punishment with that trick along with her gift — but I doubted that she would dislike it.
But, that was for the future. I teleported next to her. “Let’s go,” I said, then escorted her to the nature domain.
And, escorted an unconscious Mariel back.
It was time to awaken my cute headmistress.
{Strength: 65 Charisma: 65
Precision: 65 Perception: 65
Agility: 65 Manipulation: 65
Speed: 65 Intelligence: 86
Endurance: 98 Wisdom: 65}
{Purified Divine Spark: 938,885}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10
Knowledge - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
GODDESSES
Elven Goddess
Goddess of Knowledge}
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