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The day after Nick's 'awakening', many people were moving everywhere inside of the Raccoon Tribe of the North and the South.
?
Many of Veronica's Clones were carrying luggage after luggage, combining together into large metallic spiders that adapted their backs to carry many things while running at high speed and efficiency through the devil forest.
The Raccoon-kin people were being carried over these giant metallic spiders as if they were traveling through a bus.
These events were due to the Raccoon-kin people moving to the Squirrel-kin tribe, which had been expanded across the devil forest to have more inhabitable zones.
Ervas and Veronica had decided that it was safer if the people were unified into a single tribe that could protect each other… it was also more convenient for the two if all the people they wanted to protect could be together.
The Raccoon-kin, who had begun to follow Ervas and Veronica already through their 'strengthen followers' skill, didn't seem to see anything bad about this idea and forgiving their differences that once separate their tribe into two, they unified for a greater cause.
Of course, it was not as if Riaan and Mysticia had suddenly become good friends from enemies, they were already on good terms since years ago, and had considered many times unifying their tribe at some point.
The division of the Raccoon-kin tribe of the Devil Forest happened a few hundreds of years ago, in the past, only the North Tribe existed.
Back then, the use of magic was believed to be demonic by the current chief, and one of the witches of the tribe, the ancestor of Mysticia, was expelled from the tribe alongside many of the other magicians, which were mostly women.
Bewildered by their bad treatment, they decided to create their own tribe where women would rule over the men, instead of the opposite, as the witch, the founder of this new tribe had taken strong hate over the men, in specific the chief of the village of that time.
The ancestor of Mysticia created a simplistic matriarch tribe where women were taught to be dominant and strong, while also developing their powerful magic to overpower the men and hunt instead of them.
However, as this witch died and her descendants became the new chiefs, such beliefs slowly dissipated, and sixty years ago, both tribes began contact with each other again, this time it was on friendly terms.
Beginning with simple trades, meetings were arranged after a few years, and Mysticia and her daughters and sisters met with Riaan and his people. Both chiefs were quite different from each other, especially culturally, but learned to accept each other differences by considering their common ancestry and roots… and also because the Devil Forest was getting more and more dangerous, and cooperation between the two tribes was necessary to ensure a better survival through cooperation.
After being saved by Ervas and Veronica, they felt indebted to them and all the people decided to finally converge together into a single tribe with the squirrel-kin, which also had a history of cooperation and good terms.
"Lord Ervas… Lady Veronica, t-this is more than we expected…" muttered Mysticia as she glanced at the large, over three-meter tall metallic spiders, which were, in fact, the combination of over ten smaller ones, modifying their bodies to fit many things over themselves alongside dozens of people, their large legs crawled through the forest, destroying trees as they walked, they seemed to be walking disasters…
"It's nothing, really," said Veronica at her side.
"We should also move the houses as well, we can't just let them abandoned in here, right?" said Ervas nonchalantly, as he manipulated the dead spirits floating around him and converted each house into golems, the houses grew similar spider-like legs than Veronica's clones, as they began to walk through the path that the giant metallic spiders left for them.
Most of the people had been already moved, but the few people that were yet to move became bewildered as they saw their houses becoming alive and walking away… it was truly a sight to behold.
Mysticia glanced at the spectacle with his eyes wide open, his fanaticism with Ervas and Veronica was slowly growing deeper…
"To be capable of manipulating the death to such an extent… impressive! Is Lord Ervas and Lady Veronica sure to not be Death Attribute Magicians?!" asked Mysticia.
"We are sure of that… for now we haven't awakened Death Attribute Magic… what we have is something similar yet different," said Ervas.
"We have various skills that are similar to Death Attribute Magic, but it all originated from my previous evolution and my ability to charm the dead… after that, it all steamrolled into what you are seeing with your own two eyes, Mysticia," said Veronica.
"The ability to charm… the dead? What a bizarre ability… but if that is what let Lord Ervas and Lady Veronica do such things, it must be a powerful skill that not many can accomplish… though the origin of such a thing is unclear. The composition of Lord Ervas and Lady Veronica's souls are incredibly unique and overwhelmingly aberrant! It is as if they are a presence that invites anything to join them! I might not be dead, but I have delved into the depths of Spirit Magic and Shamanism… such ability is probably already charming me… I can barely resist the temptation to build large shrines in honor of our lords!" said Mysticia, she had met Ervas and Veronica two days ago, but was already fascinated with them much like the undead would be, this might be related to her mental corruption and inner wickedness, which could be akin to many undead.
"Please don't build any shrines, it is not a thing I would like," said Ervas… he found it odd to be worshiped as a god for doing such measly things.
"Yeah, Mysticia, save your energies for now… Anyways, I've wondered if that shrine is the one that you use to pray to your gods?" asked Veronica, pointing at a small building made up of white clay and decorated with many words and plants.
Riaan nodded.
"Indeed, that is the shrine that we use to pray to the Heroic Raccoon-kin Goddess, Daeva-sama," said Riaan.
"Daeva is the goddess that we both worship, that didn't change even when the original tribe split in two," said Mysticia.
Veronica and Ervas were a bit curious about the gods that each tribe worshiped, as they were trying to compare them to the gods that the tribes that lived in the Demon Continents worshiped.
It seemed as if the tribes of the Devil Forest worshiped Heroic Gods, while the tribes in the Demon Continents worshiped mostly the Dark Gods and other gods unrelated to their original kin.
However, the Squirrel-kin tribe did worship the Dark Gods alongside Ratatoskr, just not as much. As most of their rituals were for the Heroic Squirrel Goddess.
As the large metallic spiders and golem houses moved through the forest, Ervas and Veronica were preparing themselves to finally let Pekorina met with her family once again.
Pekoran, Pekorina's mother, who was inhabiting Veronica's soul for the meantime, had finally decided to become a guardian for his children and wife.
And to protect them, he needed to be strong, preferably to start a bit strong to begin with, so he decided to become an undead.
Pekoran dead spirit surged from within Veronica as he asked the two, while they were talking with Riaan and Mysticia to revive him into a strong undead that could never let his family go through such pain again.
"Hm, if you want to protect them, why not become a Living Armor?" asked Veronica.
"A Living Armor?! That is a wonderful idea, Lady Veronica! Can I also become a Shield, a spear, and a sword?!" said Pekoran.
"So, you want to have a multitude of bodies? Well, that might be a bit harder. But not impossible," added Ervas.
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<Skill Explanations>
[Inner Skeleton Form Manipulation]
A Skill acquired by those capable of manipulating their inner skeleton through infusing Mana into it. This Skill not only lets the user easily heal any kind of damage on their bones but also to infuse mana into it so it can grow to the point of even breaking out of its flesh and to be used as a weapon.
However, strong bones are needed for the bones to even be useful as weapons, and it is often not used like this by their original wielders, the small family of Liches that acquired flesh bodies by their ancestor doings.
This family was the only Lich Family capable of preproduction, but because their birth rates were so low, their family members were often extraordinarily little, and a coupled would often have only one child.
Although the birth rate increased after they began to marry and mate with other demon races, their bloodline slowly faltered until they disappeared through the sands of time, only for Ervas to awaken such mysterious and unique bloodline through the evolution triggered by the Samsara System.
This Skill can strengthen the user bones the higher the skill level is, although none of their original users ever got the Skill past Level 3 if Ervas were to manage to reach Level 10 on it, in what Skill would it awaken into? Only time will tell.
The sourc𝗲 of this content is free(w)ebnov(𝒆)l