Chapter 309 Ultimate Skill
The war was over and everything returned back to normal, is what I wanted to say.
Yeah, sure, the war was over, but that left everything else. I mean, certainly, I ended the fighting and deaths relatively easy, but I couldn’t just command for everything to be fixed up between the sides fighting.
Aside the fact that I managed to resurrect them all at the cost of ninety percent of all my mana, these were actual people that died for no proper reason. If I wasn’t here, they wouldn’t have been resurrected post war. Both Krull and [Pride] were literally just going to have a kingdom with no soldiers if they won.
The guys in the West weren’t too pleased and didn’t want to suddenly make up with the North and the East. I mean, this was the East’s second offence. Sure, the orcs, kobolds and cyclopes proved that not everyone in the East and North were bad, but that didn’t change the fact that the others chose violence over peace.
Things were getting a bit complicated and so now I had to hold some sort of reparations meeting to appease both the West and the South. Apparently, they also came under attack, although not nearly as much as the West did and considering the impromptu attack on the West and the distance required to travel, they weren’t able to come over in time to help. That’s besides the fact that they had no idea that the West was under such a surprise attack since that all ended in a single day.
Even then, ignoring the people themselves, the ground was a bit of an issue. According to Diane, Larm would rebuild itself eventually, but the scale of damage would cause the process to be slower than usual. If Goliath were here, he would have sped things along with [Overlord], but considering how much mana and stamina it drained, it wasn’t something I was particularly interested in using.
When I thought about it, it made me wonder how someone like Minerva who couldn’t use mana was able to use [Overlord]. She should have died… Maybe let’s not think too much about that. Clouding myself with negative thoughts couldn’t possibly end well.
That’s right! In times of depression, just don’t feel depressed! Greatest piece of advice I’d ever heard.
Ok, so here was a list of to-do things:
1. Ensure the smooth rehabilitation of Larm without the use of Overlord.
2. Host a conference or reparations meeting to see how best to sort out the anger between everybody.
3. … Find Minerva
Since I had sorted out things to do at a later time, I decided to focus on something closer to me at the moment.
‘I honestly don’t want to deal with this, but it’s time to look at the system notifications.’
‘Well… let’s do this!’
‘Y-Yosh!’
Right when I allowed it, I was flooded with too much information.
[Congratulations! You have successfully evolved into an Arcane Demonic Twilight Phoenix King]
[Your stats have gone up and you have developed some new racial skills]
[You have developed the skills [Phoenix Feather], [Ash Rebirth], [Phoenix Fire], [Soul Gaze], [Bestow], [Solar Absorption], [Solar Flare], [Instant Regeneration], [Fire Form], [Blessing] and [Naming]]
[You have acquired the ultimate skill [Greed]]
[The ultimate skill [Greed] is absorbing the unique skills [Skill Alchemy], [God’s Wisdom], [Supreme Wisdom Council] and [Energy Transcriber]]
[The ultimate skill [Greed] has developed into 2 new skills]
[You have acquired the Ultimate skill [Authority of Avarice]]
[You have acquired the Ultimate skill [Chained Mammon]]
[Congratulations! You have unlocked the [Sin Skill Series]]
[With the Ultimate Skill [Authority of Avarice] you have received access to all skills under the [Sin of Greed] skill tree]
[The Ultimate skill [Authority of Avarice] is altering some of your skills]
[The advanced skill [World Eater] has been altered into the Unique Skill [Limitless]]
[The Ultimate skill [Authority of Avarice] has reproduced the unique skills [God’s Wisdom] and [Energy Transcriber]]
[The Unique skills [God’s Wisdom], [Energy Transcriber] and [Limitless] have been consumed to create the unique skill [Infinite Processor]]
[The Unique skill [Supreme Wisdom Council] has become [Mammon’s Treasury]]
[Several Higher beings are watching you with hostile gazes]
[You have been blessed by the Greater God of Light, Janus for the annihilation of one of the Sin Gods]
[You have received complete immunity to Holy Magic]
[You have received an affinity for Holy Magic]
[You have received the title [Crusader of Light]]
[When faced with by a worshipper of the Light Faction in the Seven Great Gods Church, you will be treated with respect]
[Your title [Hell’s Damned Monarch] has been removed]
[You have received the title [Marked By The Hell King]]
[You have received a great treasure from hell and are now held in high regard. All devils will instinctively feel the urge to obey your command]
[You have received the title [Explorer of Hell]]
[You successfully went into hell and came back alive. Your sense of direction is great!]
[You have received the title [Alpha’s Lacky]]
[You are a pawn in Alpha’s games]
[You have received the title [Soon-To-Be Parent]]
[You found out that your servant Kara is pregnant with your child. Oh boy…]
[You have acquired the Ultimate skill [Pride]]
[The Ultimate skill [Pride] has developed into 2 new skills]
[You have acquired the Ultimate skill [Authority of Pride]]
[You have acquired the Ultimate skill [Chained Lucifer]
[With the Ultimate Skill [Authority of Pride], you have gained access to all the skills under the [Sin of Pride] skill tree]
[You have received the title [Saviour]]
[Your servants and minions are hailing you as their saviour. With their praise, you receive a grand boost in power! 1.5x magic power]
[You have received the title [Impending Calamity]]
[Gods are fearful of your future potential. Weaker opponents will be dreadful at the mere thought of you]
[You have received the title [Sinful One]]
[You are at the highest level of the sin skill tree.]
[You have received the title [Sin Slayer]]
[You consumed the sin gods [Greed] and [Pride]. You will receive a great resistance against attacks from other sin gods, as well have a higher attack power when fighting them]
[You have received the title [Foul Heretic]]
[Your very existence is unacceptable to most gods. Your stats go up by 500% when fighting [Sacred Bearers], excluding during [Sacred Events]]
…
‘I’m honestly not in the mood to shout at this point.’
‘Y-Yeah… k-kind of saw t-this c-c-coming.’
‘Ugh… whatever. Let’s just look through them.’
Of course, I brushed through the first few lines because I was already aware of what I chose to transform into. The skills there were pretty self-explanatory except maybe [Phoenix feather] and [Bestow]. [Phoenix Feather] meant any one of my feathers was capable of giving a user holding it an anti-death chance. Like the video game item, anyone using it could avoid death once, then it would burn up.
Bestow allowed me to grant something to one specific person or item. Like, I bestowed someone a holy sword which meant only they could use it or something like that. My new race was basically that one divine beast that gave the protagonist of a game or manga a cheat item before they went off to face the demon lord… which in this case wouldn’t be happening since I’d been chosen to become the next demon lord. (Sorry hero, but you’re on your own this time!)
Ok, so that was it for the normal bit. The rest just left me confused.
Getting an Ultimate skill was wild. In fact, it was probably something to rejoice about. Having an Ultimate skill already put me in the top percentage of this world’s important figures. But then I suddenly get more?
Of course the gods are angry at me. Most of them probably didn’t have Ultimate skills and yet here I was getting 4 or 6 of them. I would’ve offered my head to the chopping block, but I’d just come back from that so there was no point.
So, now let’s discuss the actual Ultimate skills themselves. [Greed].
‘I w-was right.’
‘Huh?’
‘What?’
‘I-I t-thought M-Myne m-must have been a sk-skill, remember?’
‘Nope, do you Akira?’
‘Of course not. Akkun is just talking out of his ass now… totally didn’t happen.’
‘Hey!’
The ultimate skill [Greed] broke up into two different Ultimate skills, [Authority of Avarice] and [Chained Mammon].
As I looked through the system right now, I drew my attention to the two chains that were attached to my body. A golden chain and a white one. When I saw them, I didn’t give too much thought to them and assumed they were simply parts of the transformation, but nope, they were Ultimate skills given physical form.
The golden chain was [Chained Mammon] and the other was [Chained Lucifer]. Mammon and Lucifer were wrapped around my waist like a belt.
They both looked like simple accessories, but Mammon allows me to make anything it touches mine whereas Lucifer allows me to project a false reality onto anything that sees or touches it. Both were described in vague ways, but long story short, Mammon was the ultimate thief and Lucifer was the ultimate politician. Not much difference, but it works.
[Authority of Avarice] and [Authority of [Pride] were a little bit disappointing. Both gave me access to all skills under their varying branches, but that felt a bit redundant since Mammon and Pride both did all of those things by themselves. It felt like there had to be more to them, but I couldn’t quite figure out more on those.
Then there were the new unique skills I received. [Limitless], [Infinite Processor] and [Mammon’s Treasurers]. [Limitless] essentially turned my stomach into a never-ending pit. I was unsure what the difference was from [World Eater], but maybe I would find out one day.
[Infinite Processor] turned the space inside [Limitless] into a math classroom…
I’m kidding.
I was just a computer and [Infinite Processor] was my RAM. The explanation’s a bit muddy, but think of it like all tasks were performed in a space where time didn’t flow or exist. Basically, I could perform any fusion in there for an indefinite amount of time and it would appear near instantly over here.
‘I think our stomach is a pocket dimension now.’
‘Right? The hell you mean “a space where time doesn’t flow or exist”!? What the hell did our stomach turn into?’
‘I could s-store s-s-so m-many b-battle ready sp-spells there. M-Maybe I can f-freely ex-experiment in there too. Hehehe.’
‘Huh… looks like it’s just me and you now, Kira. Akkun’s completely enthralled by this.’
‘Looks like it. But I think I’ll also spend a lot of time there. That’s an infinite number of skill fusions I can perform. And if you eat enough substances, I could start working on actual physical alchemy. This is the chance of a life time.’
Oh. Looks like I was all alone inside my own head… bummer.
Then again, they were probably being like this because of the last new unique skill, [Mammon’s Treasurer]. They were greedy for power now, meaning they’d just be constantly working on new ways to make us stronger.
“Mother!”, Out of the blue, Maou jumped onto my lap. I sensed both Maou and Julian coming towards me quite a while back, but chose to ignore them, not that it matters.
“We’re still going with this mother thing, huh?”, I patted Maou on the head.
“Of course. What else would I call you?”
“Hinotori…”
“Mother.”
“Hinotori.”
“Mother…?”
“… Whatever. Where were you during this whole fiasco?”, Maou was far too stubborn for me to change his mind, so I eventually settled on changing the conversation topic.
“Here and there. I summoned a devil to protect me though.”, As he said this, my gaze was directed towards the ugly man in the back dressed in a butler’s uniform.
He immediately prostrated himself before me once he entered my sights, and didn’t dare to lift his head up.
“Uuuh, why is he doing that?”, [Hell’s Damned Monarch] and [Makrov’s Blessing] had been removed, meaning I shouldn’t be releasing any sort of fear gas to devils near me.
‘S-So beautiful.’
Oh… he was one of those kinds of people.
I hadn’t even tried to think about my new appearance mostly because my heart hurt every time the fact that I’d grown smaller came to mind. If I looked like a twelve-year old before, I’d say I was ten now. I was far too embarrassed to even allow my brain to wonder about my situation.
“The glorious supreme overlord of Larm awoken from her slumber, eviscerated her foes and now rests at a location far from her allies. How charmi-”
“Shut it with the crap, Julian.”, I cut off everybody’s favourite eye-patch-wearing, chuuni vampire brat in a butler’s uniform.
If he continued rambling, I was sure I’d die from the cringe.
“Did Julian take care of you?”, I asked Maou, but the kitten didn’t respond. I could feel his irritation at the mere mention of the vampire’s name, so for the fun of it, I set him on fire.
“M-My lady?”
“Yes, Julian?”
“It would seem you accidentally set me ablaze.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Anyway, did anything interesting happen aside the war?”, I returned my attention to Maou.
“Hmm, I wanted to go see Zana, but she was too far.”
That wasn’t something I expected to hear. Since when did Maou actually care for someone other than myself? Did something happen when I left those two alone the last time?
“You really like Zana, huh?”
“I-I wouldn’t say that…”
“Pfft.”
I grabbed my mouth to stop anything further from coming out.
“What was that?”
“Pfft… n-nothing… pfft.”
“That wasn’t nothing. Are you fine?”
“Mhm. Everything’s all good, tsun tsun~.”
Confused, Maou tilted his head while glaring at me with his cat eyes. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter after that.
As I sat inside Minerva’s cave, laughing about Maou’s tsundere personality, I couldn’t help but wonder about what came next. Humans, demons, gods, what kind of crazy mission was waiting to drop on my lap. The kind of anxiety I had was probably what presidents of countries on the brink of war felt every day. Still, something felt oddly calming about my entire situation. I guess I found comfort in the fact that I was strong enough to live peacefully now.
All that was left was to get Minerva back and to turn Larm into a stronghold. Once that happened, maybe I’d just sleep for quite a bit.
<A/N: Jesus… we’re now done with the second arc... well first (hell arc was supposed to be it's own thing, but guess I ended up mixing the two) of the third volume: Monster Queen or whatever I called it earlier on. I wish I could say we’re jumping right onto the Oxaivalon arc, but then I’d be lying. I want to make a 10 - 20 chapters detour into the Winter Zone first. Honestly, it could be done after the Oxaivalon arc, but I don’t plan on making either a long arc, so I think I’ll just do this first.
Well, Tori’s officially in the higher echelons of the world. Considering what comes next for her, she’ll need at least this much to survive, but sometimes I wonder if making most of the gods her enemy was the right call here.
Um, saw a comment saying I should bring back <A/N>s… tbh, I was happy to see that and said to myself I would, till I realised I have nothing to really say here. Maybe I can give a daily update, like how it’s hot as hell in this blasted country and I’m sweating buckets every day. Or how I (not-so recently) found out there’s a genre of music called Depressed Lo-fi and that’s all I listen to apparently… there’s something so soothing about it though, so when my friends go all ‘WTF bro’, I just laugh it off and go right back into listening to it, because my choice in music just doesn't resonate with most of them. I usually listen to, uh, I don't know the genres of music… yeah, that’s about it.>
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