Chapitre 123: Chapter 53: Framing
Story: I'm a Daemon, so what?
Disclaimer: I do not own the original setting.
Chapter 53: Framing
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- Felix -
"Well, I've wasted enough time here. Don't expect to be reincarnated. I'll be eating your Soul. Nighty night."
After saying that, I sliced upwards. My hand was held vertically, almost as if it were a blade of some kind. It may as well be a blade with how much force I could bring to bear.
I quickly cut through Yuuki's body, even his head, leaving his upper body cut in half vertically.
Blood splattered everywhere, though my Infinity protected me from getting dirty.
The deaths of both Hinata and Saeko have been avenged. It didn't matter to me that both were technically alive.
Yuuki had crossed me so he suffered for it. I was a tyrant, and I accepted that part of myself. But hey, just because I usually was too lazy to act out didn't mean I wasn't a Daemon.
Since Yuuki was still in the process of becoming a true Spiritual Being, his body had not completely turned into energy, leaving him still filled with lifeblood.
Still, just to be sure he stayed dead, I infused my hand with some Divinity, shredding apart Yuuki's Spiritual and Astral Body.
Yuuki may have been able to nullify my Divinity with Anti-Skill if he tried, but his evolution worked against him in this case as his Spiritual Body was also changing, not to mention he was far too drained for such a thing.
I cleared up the storm I had generated with a wave of my hand.
All in all, Yuuki was an easy threat to deal with, easier than I thought he would be. He was skilled, that was for sure. But no amount of skill is enough when you aren't even in the same dimension as your opponent, figuratively, of course.
I didn't even need to use any weapons against the guy. Hell, I barely tried at all.
I honestly expected… more from him. It seems I was making him out to be a big threat in my head when, in reality, he was just… Yuuki. So much for that.
I was able to easily cut his arm off using Infinity Soul Magic in combination with Ouroboros, easily bypassing Anti-Skill due to being from two sources.
Not that the attack was weak; it was capable of slicing through even Dimensions after all, hell I could have easily killed him with that one move by cutting his body apart.
That was enough to prove to me that Anti-Skill would not be all that useful in high-level fights. Perhaps it may have its uses when attacking someone, I could see it being useful if the enemy does not expect it, I can use it to bypass Barriers my enemies are confident in, and various other things, but it did a piss poor job at defense if the enemy was aware of it, that was for sure.
I know that, for certain, Guy would easily be able to dismantle it and find out its weaknesses.
Though I did want to test some more stuff on Yuuki, but I didn't expect the fight to be so easy, ignoring the sudden power-up Yuuki was about to get.
Laplace seriously hyped Yuuki up way too much. I was getting a little bit excited for the battle.
I looked down at Yuuki's body. His upper body was split in half, while his lower body remained as is. Perhaps I was cruel, perhaps I was lenient, who knows, but I finally got my revenge. Though I gave the body one final kick for good measure.
I noticed his left arm, which I had cut off, had almost completely regenerated, likely due to almost becoming a Saint, a Complete Saint too, unlike even Hinata, who was known as a prodigy among prodigies.
As a Complete Saint, he likely would have been capable of exerting far more power than he previously was, likely over thirty times more strength than a normal Human, and that was just base physical strength, not mentioning Aura reinforcement or any reinforcement Spells.
There was no way I would allow him to get that kind of power-up. Sure, I still believed that he wouldn't be a challenge to take care of. In fact, I was planning to allow him to become a Complete Saint at first.
I could get a bit of a power-up from consuming his soul that way, after all.
It was when I noticed an Ultimate Skill forming in his soul that I decided to kill him before he could become an Ultimate Awakened.
I was easily able to notice the Ultimate Skill forming due to seeing an Ultimate Skill form in Luminous's own soul. Perhaps I wouldn't have recognized what was occurring if it wasn't for that, though I doubt it.
An Ultimate Skill was too much of a wild card for me to allow. He could have received any kind of ability for all I know. I did want to see if I could get any more information out of Yuuki, but it is what it is. I'd rather him be dead than awaken an Ultimate Skill.
I wasn't going to let that happen on the off chance he got an Ultimate Skill that allowed him to get out of this situation. I was not going to act like a shitty anime villain.
And even if I was going to be a villain, I was going to be a damn good one, not one that let the Shōnen protagonist completely power up in the hopes for a good fight or anything equally asinine.
I'm looking at you, Aizen Sosuke. The man was a genius, far smarter than anyone I know except Odin, and yet he created the very same being that would defeat him.
Some of these villains, man. Sometimes they get so carried away with all their plans and crap that they end up overlooking the fact that they are about to get womped.
One thing I did notice was that I had acted far more Daemon-like today, more than I ever have. But, eh, I didn't really care. At the end of the day, I was a Daemon now. I like to think my true nature hasn't changed, and I still believe that. I never advertised myself as a good person, after all.
I'm just some lucky bastard who got his hands on a ton of power.
But seriously, what kind of bullshit is this guy? He almost became a Saint on command. When I killed him, he was in the midst of Awakening; he was a Pseudo-Saint of sorts, and then, on top of that he began evolving his Skill into an Ultimate Skill.
People don't just do that. Honestly, the thought of it made me wanna give him another kick. Though I was also bullshit like that.
When I killed him, his soul was in the midst of growing stronger. I imagine that is the only reason he was able to even possibly acquire an Ultimate Skill.
His soul had grown powerful enough to contain one.
I sighed, well at least he didn't get his Shōnen power up, after I pierced his heart, Odin was able to easily interfere with his soul, preventing the Ultimate Skill from taking form.
Odin's masterful manipulation of Information Particles has come in handy once again.
That's also how I was able to pressure his Heart Core as well.
Earlier, I was curious as to what his goals were with Mariabell so I allowed him to kill her.
Even when he took her Skill, I wasn't worried; I was just curious, and then he goes and pulls some bullshit.
'How did he take Greed from Mariabell anyway, Odin?'
'It is likely that the Unique Skill: Greed chose him all on its own. Sin Series Skills are capable of leaving their hosts if they find a more suitable one. Yuuki was simply more compatible than Mariabell.'
'Huh, I see.'
I looked at Mariabell's body. There was a hole in her chest left from Yuuki piercing her. Well, she deserved it. I wasn't lying when I said I didn't care for her anymore.
Perhaps I could have used her to gain power in the West, but I don't care all that much about that.
I already helped Rimuru by getting her to invite Tempest to the Council of the West. He can handle things from there.
I did make sure to quickly grab and consume Mariabell's soul, though. Her soul was torn up due to Greed being ripped out of her, but I wasn't going to deny a free boost to my power, no matter how minuscule it was.
I sensed the surrounding area outside my Barriers, I decided to make sure no one was coming in this direction, and thankfully, no one was, though I did sense plenty of Monsters and Magic Beasts nearby.
I imagine they would have all run away fearfully if I hadn't put the Barriers up. Thanks to my Barriers, the fight was kept contained, and even the environmental damage was kept to a minimum.
This fight hadn't even lasted 10 minutes, and most of that was my conversation with Yuuki, a disappointing conversation, too.
But I'm not sure what I expected in the first place.
I still had to take care of taming some Monsters in order to frame this incident as a Monster attack. I also still had those guards stored in my Infinity Space.
Afterwards, I'll teleport to Ruberious. Luminous did offer to send some members of the Western Holy Church here in order to confirm the Monster attack after all.
The Western Holy Church saying such a thing will give the incident a lot more credibility.
Not to mention, I can tease her some more!
Hopefully, she isn't still mad at me, though.
But before all that, I aimed my palm in the direction of Yuuki's corpse.
'Beelzebuth.'
A swirl of darkness appeared in front of me, consuming Yuuki's Physical Body and Soul.
I intend to keep my promise, after all, that Yuuki will not reincarnate. Once Odin analyzes Anti-Skill some more, perhaps I can directly create some Anti-Skill weapons to hand out. I'm sure Rimuru will find them useful, as will my own people.
Ultimate Skill: Mammon, Lord of Greed has been analyzed.
Huh?
Unique Skill: Creator has been acquired.
Huh?!
I-I don't even know what to think.
I know consuming beings with Beelzebuth basically gives me all their Skills as well as a portion of their power, so I'm not as surprised that I got Yuuki's Unique Skill, no matter how busted it seems to be.
But Mammon?
'How did you manage that Odin?'
'Answer. The Information for the Ultimate Skill: Mammon, Lord of Greed was still engraved onto Yuuki Kagurazaka's soul. Odin was able to decipher the Information and obtain enough data to recreate the Ultimate Skill: Mammon, Lord of Greed.'
Well damn.
'Good work Odin.'
'It is Odin's duty.'
'Uh huh.'
That's another Sin Series Ultimate Skill for me. I have Satanael, Lord of Wrath, Beelzebuth, Lord of Gluttony, and then I have the data for Asmodeus, Lord of Lust, and now Mammon, Lord of Greed.
That's 4 out of the 7 Sins, that leaves Sloth, Pride, and Envy, and I'm sure they'll turn up eventually.
I have the data for a good amount of Virtue Series Skills as well. Uriel, Lord of Vows, Raphael, Lord of Wisdom, Metatron, Lord of Purity, and Gabriel, Lord of Patience.
That's also 4 out of the 7 Virtues. Each Virtue Skill is a piece of Veldanava's Divine Authority. I wonder what would happen if I gathered all of them?
I focused on my newest acquisition, Mammon, Lord of Greed.
Yuuki was not developing a game-changing Ultimate Skill like I had feared. It was powerful as hell, as all Ultimate Skills are, but it would not allow him to escape this situation.
Mammon's essence is that of taking, taking things from others, and this can be shown in its sub-skills.
The first sub-skill, Absorb Life, allows the user to suck out the various energies of a target and make them the user's own.
When someone uses any of the various energies stored in the body, they are reducing their Existence Points as Existence Points are based upon how much energy is in your body.
With Absorb Life you can basically forcefully reduce the Existence Points of someone else while increasing your own, which I thought was fairly interesting.
Then there is Control Heart, which is basically the mind control aspect of Greed except that it is strengthened by an extreme amount.
Even I would be wary of being mind-controlled by this if I didn't have Odin to protect me from those types of external influences.
Then there is Multilayer Barrier, which might be considered basic to me now, but is still a very powerful ability.
Multilayer Barrier can protect its users fairly well. After all, it can even block physical attacks, and at my level, practically nothing will be capable of piercing a Multilayer Barrier I place with the express purpose of physically protecting me.
Then there was Thought Acceleration, but the main ability I was interested in was the last sub-skill, Skill Steal.
Skill Steal allows the user to steal the Skills of their opponent. Of course, this has a limit, Skills engraved into the Heart Core, like Ultimate Skills and certain Unique Skills, are off limits, but other than that, the sky's the limit.
Mammon would be very effective for stealing Unique Skills alone. Most Unique Skills are engraved in the Spirit or the Physical Body, allowing them to be stolen. Only a very small portion of Unique Skills are stored in the Heart Core, like the Sin Series Skills.
Though it seems unstable, Ultimate Skills can be stolen, like those that have been given rather than earned.
Still, Mammon is an incredibly powerful Skill. It just wouldn't have helped Yuuki out of his situation.
Then there was the Unique Skill: Creator, which I gained. Now this, in my opinion, is more valuable than even Mammon due to the sheer potential it possesses.
It is only a Unique Skill, but Creator is quite literally bullshit.
It allows the user to freely manipulate their Soul Energy and change its form into various different energies, and that is one of its most basic uses.
It had Analytical Appraisal which allowed Yuuki to get a detailed analysis of any target, a useful ability for anyone to have.
But that wasn't all. It could also create Skills….
Nothing too powerful, of course, Unique Skills were impossible, and the resulting Skill would be based on the user's desires, but that's still absolutely bullshit.
I have come to find that Yuuki is bullshit.
Still, this Skill could not be used all the time. Soul Energy is not easily recovered, creating a Skill uses a vast amount of Soul Energy and will often take years for even an enhanced Human like Yuuki to recover it to its former state.
It was quite similar to traditionally naming Monsters, as if one was not prepared, one would lose a portion of one's Magicules permanently.
Still, the sheer potential Creator had was absurd. If it evolved into an Ultimate Skill, who knows what its limits could be.
Of course, it wouldn't be anything super broken like omnipotence, it would still be limited by the user, but an Ultimate Skill version of Creator could possibly allow one to reach and surpass the levels of the True Dragons if the user plays things right.
I'm almost completely certain that this Skill is what allowed Yuuki to spontaneously begin evolving into a Saint, I just don't see how he could have done what he did otherwise.
To become an Enlightened, one needs to break a mental barrier and ascend into a Half Spiritual State. And then, to become a Saint, one needs to Awaken and become a true Spiritual Lifeform.
Yuuki managed to instantly become an Enlightened and begin the process of becoming a Saint in less than a second.
Creator is the only answer as to how he did that.
He may have even granted himself Anti-Skill with it. In fact he likely did exactly that.
This Skill is just hax.
If Yuuki had managed to evolve this in our fight, I'd have actually been worried.
'Query. Would the Master like for Odin to begin the process of evolving the Unique Skill: Creator into an Ultimate Skill?'
My non-existent heart almost stopped beating when I heard what Odin had just said.
'You can do that?!'
'Yes.'
Well damn.
'What would the costs be?'
Manifesting an Ultimate Skill results in a significant portion of one's Magicule Capacity being reduced. Manifesting any type of Skill reduces overall Magicule Capacity.
'It is likely that the Master would lose over 6,000,000 Existence Points.'
Ouch.
I did gain some Existence Points from consuming the Chaos Dragon, but even still, 6,000,000 EP is a lot.
That's more than double the EP that Megumin possesses, and she has the most EP among all my subordinates.
'Is there any other way, Odin?'
I doubted it; there is always a cost to power, and trying to circumvent that might as well be considered taboo, but it couldn't hurt to ask.
'It is possible, however it will take some time. Using Yuuki Kagurazaka's Awakened soul as fuel it is possible to evolve the Unique Skill: Creator into its Ultimate form, this method will decrease the amount of Energy lost to fuel the evolution of the Skill.'
'Do that then. I don't mind waiting if I can avoid losing some of my power that way. How long will it be?'
'Due to Odin making some modifications to the Skill, as well as fully processing the soul, it may take up to three months.'
'Great, start that then.'
'Affirmative.'
Three months was not long at all, especially when considering I'll be getting a new Ultimate Skill at the end of it.
Still, that would give me five Ultimate Skills. I imagine that is my limit.
'Correct. Any more than five Ultimate Skills will cause the Master's soul to begin collapsing.'
Well, giving that last slot to Creator is probably the best move, anyway.
I am quite curious about what kind of abilities the Ultimate Skill version of Creator would have. Creator was a Skill with an essence focused on Creation, after all.
It would no doubt be able to create Skills, but I didn't think that was as big a boon as it seemed to be.
I highly doubted it would be capable of creating Ultimate Skills, even Unique Skills may be a stretch, and besides, Odin can already create new Skills with all the data she has acquired over time.
So sure, the ability is broken, but Odin is already more broken.
What I'm interested in is its ability to create other things.
I had already experimented in the past with creating an entirely new Dimension, with oxygen and various other things.
However, I could not change the Laws that the Dimension functioned on, since, by default, it was still linked to the Dimension it was created in.
Sort of like a secondary Dimension within another Dimension.
But with the Ultimate Skill version of Creator perhaps it would be possible to create a new Dimension entirely separate, one with its own unique Laws.
That's practically creating an entirely new universe!
Not to mention I can likely create matter, I may be able to mass produce my Deathman body, not that I need to, but having the option to create a Physical Body that is at the peak of power, one that can be possessed by Spiritual Beings like Daemons and Elementals may come in handy at some point.
I could likely gain the ability to create even stars, a cosmic phenomenon.
I was incredibly adept at causing Destruction, but creating something of my own sounded incredible to me.
Then, there was the last thing that I considered.
Creating souls.
If I could create souls, that would be an absolute game-changer. Of course, even if I could create souls from scratch, I still wouldn't use it to power up my subordinates through a Harvest Festival. Since for a soul to be used as fuel in a Harvest Festival it needs to have a solid ego, they need to be considered a person.
I wasn't all that comfortable with creating a living being with its own ego and then just killing it right after.
Literal spawn killing. Sure, I could program them to be happy about being used as fuel, but I had another idea.
If I could create souls, that means I could create Soul Energy, Soul Energy is what is used to fuel the Harvest Festival. Souls are just the mediums in which Soul Energy is harvested for the Harvest Festival.
'Notice. That is unlikely but possible, from the data Odin has gathered. Creating a brand new soul is a level higher than what the Master is capable of as of right now. Odin has hypothesized that it is theoretically possible to create a soul and, by extension, Soul Power in the future after more data is gathered, but as of right now, Odin does not possess the processing power required for such a feat.'
Well, that sucks.
Creating true life is beyond me for now huh?
'It is impossible to predict exactly how Creator will develop as an Ultimate Skill, it may provide Odin with sufficient data to create souls.'
Hope is not lost!
Well, even if creating true life is impossible, I'd like to think of evolving Creator into an Ultimate Skill as the first step to something much more grand. It may as well be the first step to truly creating something that is completely my own.
Perhaps one day I can create my own Universe, with its own unique Laws and its own unique living beings.
Who would stop me anyway? Veldanava is long gone, and I don't think he would mind one of his creations experimenting with creation itself.
Creating a universe would be a fun experiment.
Ah, I probably shouldn't think of something like that as just an experiment huh?
Still, that means I'll need to come up with a different way to get the souls in order to trigger the Harvest Festivals of my subordinates. I had no intention of forcefully holding them back after all.
I trusted each of them enough, to the point I didn't think for a moment that any of them would betray me.
Well, I'll think of something eventually.
'What about Anti-Skill? Could you recreate the Spiritual Constitution in my body?'
'The Spiritual Constitution has been thoroughly analyzed when the Master consumed Yuuki Kagurazaka with Beelzebuth, and it is theoretically possible to currently recreate it with Creator at some cost. However it is recommended that the Master waits until Odin has finished evolving Creator for the best, and safest results.'
'I'll leave the decision to you, I'm not in desperate need of Anti-Skill.'
'The Master's safety is Odin's priority, modifying the Spiritual Body to that extent must be done with caution.'
'You're the boss, I'll wait then.'
I imagine that modifying my Spiritual Body to give it the Anti-Skill Attribute is a lot like surgery, surgery on a Spiritual level so it was probably best to do such a thing with a healthy amount of caution.
I could have probably used Anti-Skill to break Chronoa's Seal completely, but it isn't a big deal. Luminous is already working on the unsealing anyway.
Waiting a little while isn't a problem.
Unfortunately I couldn't access Yuuki's memories, his core was damaged quite a bit from having the formation of an Ultimate Skill interrupted, so that's rather unfortunate.
Welp, it's clean-up time now.
- Rimuru Tempest -
He sat back in his chair and thought back to the words he heard earlier.
I'm sorry Rimuru…
He knew without a doubt that Yuuki was the one who had said those words. Rimuru had no idea about how Yuuki's words reached him, but it was still more than enough to confirm one thing to Rimuru.
Yuuki was dead, and Felix killed him. He knew he shouldn't feel sad. With all the misery Yuuki had caused, his death was practically deserved. He would have more than earned the death sentence back on Earth.
But still, Rimuru couldn't help but feel sad.
He thought back to the past, when he and Yuuki would talk about manga, talk about Shizu, and talk about their experiences in this world.
He wished things could have turned out differently, but he knew Felix would not take his protest well.
He couldn't even fault Felix for that; any normal person with the information they had could see that Yuuki was a threat that needed to be taken care of.
Even Raphael had agreed that killing Yuuki was the optimal course of action and that allowing him to live would likely only bring more hardship to Tempest.
At least this attack on Tempest exposed a flaw in Tempest's defense. Due to so many guests being around, most Human royalty and Human nobles, so they had to take down the always running Anti-Magic Area in order to make the guests feel a bit more comfortable as the Anti-Magic Area would restrict their subordinates heavily should this be a planned ambush by Tempest.
He had ordered his subordinates to increase the defense, but it seemed that was not enough, he would need to find a better way of scouting out threats to Tempest, and he knew just how to go about doing that.
Souei had been very hard on himself, blaming himself for the breach in security, but if even he, an actual Demon Lord, didn't see the attack coming, he wasn't going to blame Souei for it.
Still, Souei had been training his subordinates far harder, so that such a situation would not happen again.
He sighed again. He needed a drink.
Before he could go to Treyni's bar, he was interrupted.
"Lord Rimuru!" He heard the person knocking call out.
He sighed. "Come in, Diablo."
The door opened, and in came Diablo, who quickly bowed.
"Did you need something, Diablo?"
Diablo nodded. "Yes, My Lord. I had a request."
A request from Diablo? Diablo had never asked him for anything before. He would be a bad boss if he refused him now.
"Sure, what is it?"
Diablo nodded. "Would you allow me to temporarily return to the Daemon Realm and recruit some subordinates to handle my more miscellaneous tasks? This way I can spend more time directly doing as you wish."
Ah, Rimuru did always think that having Diablo take care of his more basic needs was a waste.
He nodded. "Yeah, sure, someone of your station shouldn't be making tea for me in the first place. You deserve more than that."
All of a sudden, a profound look of loss appeared on Diablo's face. "No, My Lord! Personally, serving you has been the most enjoyable thing I have taken part in ever since my birth! Please do not take this away from me, My Lord! I beg you."
Huh? Did he misunderstand?
"Then what did you want to recruit subordinates for?"
"Ah, that was so they could take care of the trivial tasks, like subjugating Nations, destroying Nations that go against your will, not to mention they will assist in protecting Tempest from external threats. If they can take care of that, then I can afford to be by your side more often." Said Diablo.
Hold on a second. Destroying Nations?! Where did that come from?!
"Uhm, there will be no destroying of Nations Diablo."
Diablo nodded. "Ah, I see. It seems I had misunderstood."
"But still, you can go recruit those Daemons you were talking about. Felix said that they were useful and were good assistants to his own subordinates, so I'm sure they can be of use to you."
Diablo nodded. "Ah, one thing I may have trouble with is preparing enough bodies for them to incarnate in without going on a massacre."
"Yeah, you won't be going on a massacre anytime soon, Diablo. Would a body like the one I gave to Beretta work?"
Diablo nodded. "Yes, that will work perfectly. I will be recruiting Daemons from primarily my own lineage as Arcueid, Megumin, and Lalatina's subordinates will be more loyal to their progenitors."
He nodded. "Sounds good to me. How many bodies did you need?"
He tilted his head. "A couple hundred should do."
He could feel his eyes widen. "That's a lot of Daemons, but I guess I can make it work."
"Thank you, I will return soon, My Lord." And with that, Diablo vanished.
Now he can go get his drink.
- Felix -
I looked down at the scene of the crime, Monsters and Magic Beasts were now littered around the area. I had even gone out of the way to kill a few of them to show some signs of battle.
I used a combination of my Spiritual Domination and Kurumi's Beast Domination to get them to do what I wanted. It wasn't all that hard to do.
Since Yuuki's entire body was consumed by me I didn't need to arrange anything for his body except for shifting around some of the blood marks to make it look like he was eaten by a Monster.
However, I didn't consume Mariabell's Physical Body since I had no real reason to. It wouldn't add to my power at all, so I ordered the Monsters to eat her body. It wouldn't make sense for them to eat Yuuki's body but leave Mariabell's alone now, would it?
I was being very careful about this, even if I likely didn't need to be. Better safe than sorry, after all.
The death of the Guildmaster of the Free Guild was a big thing to the public after all, Mariabell was also important, but that would be due to being a Princess since her vast political power remains mostly unknown to the public.
Yuuki had made many changes to this world. He created a new Adventurer system that drastically reduced the death rate of Adventurers. He was a student of the Conqueror of Flames and an associate of Hinata.
He basically had all the Adventurers registered with the Free Guild basically under his command.
He may as well have been considered a king with no territory. The public will definitely be surprised by his death. I'm sure there will be all sorts of theories out there about how he died, so I need to make sure his death does not lead to Rimuru or me.
Yuuki was considered to be fairly strong, but he was never known to be a Champion. It would make sense if he was overwhelmed by a large horde of Monsters.
As to why he is in this area?
Well, he could be looking to create a branch of the Free Guild in the Kingdom of Siltrosso, which is why he is with that Kingdom's Princess.
I'm sure some people won't buy this, like Granbell Rosso and Kagali, but I don't need to worry about them now.
Granbell is in hiding, while Kagali is restricted to the strength of a mere Greater Majin.
I looked down one last time before snapping my fingers and appearing in Luminous's palace in Night Garden.
I had transported myself to the lounge in Luminous' palace. I flared my Aura slightly to inform her that I was there and then took a seat on one of the love seats.
Gunther appeared in front of me. "Lord Felix, Lady Luminous was not expecting you today."
Now that I know he was one of the True Ancestors of the Vampires, I respected him a bit more, if only for his sheer history.
"Yeah, I'm just here to discuss something with her if you could call her."
Gunther nodded. "Lady Luminous will meet you shortly. She is getting ready."
Getting ready? Getting ready for what?
"Would you like tea and snacks in the meantime?" Asked Gunther.
I nodded. "Yeah, bring me whatever you think is good, thanks Gunther."
He gave me a short bow and then vanished into the shadows.
Shadow Motion is a neat Skill.
Hmm, now that I think about it, Luminous is kind of similar to Arcueid from Tsukihime, Arcueid is considered the True Ancestor of Vampires, a terminal of Gaia, but is inherently different from Dead Apostles.
Luminous is similar, she can be said to be a True Ancestor of Vampires but is also inherently different from them.
It didn't take long for Gunther to return with tea and pastries.
"Oh, this is actually quite good."
"Thank you for the praise, Lord Felix." Responded Gunther.
"Hmm, so you are one of the Vampire True Ancestors. Why did you decide to serve Luminous? Some of your fellow True Ancestors became rulers on their own, why didn't you?"
Gunther took a moment to respond. "I simply wished to serve Lady Luminous from the bottom of my heart from the moment I laid eyes on her. She is truly the perfect being, and it would be my honor to serve perfection."
"Luminous? Perfect? Well, to each's own." I commented.
"Oh? Did you have a problem with what Gunther said, Felix?"
Ah, there she is.
I turned to look at Luminous and froze.
"Well, you look different today." I commented with a raised brow.
I gave Luminous a once over. She was dressed in a revealing black dress, one that showed off plenty of cleavage, yum.
I gave her a thumbs up. "Looking good!"
"Hmph! I am always looking good."
"Haha, well, that's true." For some reason, my comment made Luminous blush, weird.
"So what's the occasion? You usually wear your black frilled dress." I asked.
"I am free to change how I dress whenever I wish, Felix." She replied, acting slightly annoyed.
I shrugged my shoulders. "That's true; I was just curious if there was any reason for the sudden wardrobe change."
Luminous glared at me and then turned away.
If she wasn't a Divine and Spiritual Lifeform, I would be wondering if she was on her period.
Women.
"Well then, what are you here for?" Asked Luminous, giving me a bit of a side-eye.
"Ah, right. I killed Yuuki, while Mariabell ended up dying due to an unfortunate series of events. Earlier, you said that you were willing to send some Holy Knights to the location and confirm it as a Monster attack, right?"
Luminous nodded with a vicious smirk. "It is good that you took care of that cretin. If being in my presence was not a reward on its own, I would have rewarded you."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, right. Being in my presence is a reward, Luminous!" I extended my hand outwards. "Pay up! If you don't, I'll spank you!" I must get in my teasing!
Luminous is just too fun to bully, cough tease. Really, it's her own fault.
Thankfully, Gunther had left once Luminous had shown up. Otherwise, I imagine he would have been extremely offended on behalf of his Mistress.
Though contrary to what I expected, Luminous didn't seem to be getting angry. No, she simply blushed and looked away.
Now I'm confused. Maybe she's having an off day?
Luminous coughed lightly. "Moving on. I had an idea about how to go about framing the deaths of Yuuki and Mariabell."
"Oh? Let me hear it then."
Luminous nodded. "You are aware that Laplace had attempted to invade my palace in Night Garden after the Walpurgis correct?"
I nodded. "Yeah, that's when Roy died. What about it?"
"Hmm, well I was considering the possibility that I would send some Holy Knights loyal to me and Louis to the scene, and have them coincidentally find some sort of evidence linking the deaths of Yuuki and Mariabell to a certain group of clown mercenaries." Said Luminous, who now had a devilish smirk.
"Heh, that would be pretty funny. I wonder how Kagali and the rest of Yuuki's allies would react to that. But would the public believe it?"
Luminous rolled her eyes but nodded. "You underestimate the kind of bias Humans have against Non-Humans, most likely wouldn't even question it if the Western Holy Church declared it was a group of Majin responsible for it. It would be even more believable than a Monster attack, at the very least."
"That's true. Hmm, I did already make it look like a Monster attack, though. Both the bodies are gone."
"That is no problem. I told you that it would be Holy Knights loyal to Louis and I. They will not question anything and will do what they are ordered to, even if that means making an announcement to the public confirming the death of Yuuki Kagurazaka and the Princess of a small Kingdom." Luminous said haughtily.
"Well, if you're sure about this. I hope you realize how important it is to make sure this isn't traced back to us, Luminous."
"Of course I do." Luminous scoffed.
I nodded. "Good then, alright, I'll trust you."
Luminous smiled at me. "Good."
Luminous bent forward slightly to pick up one of the pastries Gunther left on the table, giving me an ample view of Luminous's cleavage.
She may not have the largest breasts I've seen, but I can see why there is a cult formed around her.
I looked up slightly and met Luminous's gaze, she had a smug smirk on her face for some reason.
Ah, she must have caught me staring, oops.
"Enjoying the view, Felix?" Luminous teased.
I nodded unashamed. "Of course! I can see why a cult has formed around you now! In fact, I am willing to convert now!"
"W-What!" She blurted out, clearly caught off guard by my comment. For all her experience she really was just a hag that was weak on the defense.
Though it would be pretty funny if I became one of Luminous's cultists. The people's reactions would be something.
Luminous was looking at me with a blush. "Hey, don't tease me if you can't handle being teased back!"
Luminous nibbled on the pastry to hide her embarassement. For some reason, she reminded me of a squirrel.
"Cute."
"H-Huh?"
Ah, I said that out loud. "Nothing, ignore that."
Luminous nodded slightly. We sat in silence while we ate our respective pastries.
After some time, I broke the silence. "Have you been practicing your new Skill?"
When one acquires a new Skill they generally need to practice it and learn the ins and outs of it. Only when a Skill is truly mastered is it a threat.
Thanks to Odin, I don't have to bother with that, but Luminous doesn't have some supercomputer in her head that has perfect control over her abilities.
So if she wishes to effectively wield Asmodeus she is going to need to train.
Luminous blushed and looked away. "O-Of course I have!"
I sighed. "You haven't trained once, have you."
"I do not know what you are talking about." Luminous continued to deny it.
"Come on, Luminous. You should know that you need to learn how to best use your new Skill."
Asmodeus is similar to Lust but just cranked up to a hundred. With Asmodeus, many new abilities are now available to Luminous.
Actually, Mammon and Asmodeus do seem to be relatively compatible, I wonder what kind of Skill would come out of the merging of those two.
Or perhaps even Metatron merged with Asmodeus, two opposing aspects. Luminous already had Asmodeus, and she is a master of Holy Magic, so she can likely manipulate Spiritrons at a very high level, which is what Metatron focuses on.
Perhaps I can do Luminous the favor of upgrading her Skill at some point if she proves worthy enough.
"Ugh, you should have gotten Sloth, not Lust, with how lazy you are."
"L-Lazy! I am not lazy!" Defended Luminous.
I stared her dead in the eyes. "Seriously? Hinata has told me about how many times she has found you laying on the couch doing literally nothing. In fact, that's how you primarily spend your days."
Luminous grit her teeth. "Grrr, that traitor!"
"When was the last time you even went out." I asked.
Luminous looked thoughtful before shrugging. "Before the Tempest Founding Festival, I had not gone out for decades, perhaps."
I groaned. "Ugh, you are seriously a NEET. How have you not done anything for decades? I can never understand how you long-lived beings just do nothing."
Luminous shrugged her shoulders. "You are young Felix. You will come to understand the boredom that comes with immortality in a few centuries. And by NEET, do you mean the term you referred to Velzard as in the past?"
I nodded. "Yeah, it seems she was listening in on our conversation, thankfully, she didn't seem too upset."
Luminous pouted. "I am no NEET! Being a Goddess is not easy, you know!"
"Uh-huh, sure it is."
"I am surprised that the Frost Dragon did not attack you for such a thing, she does not seem like one to be very understanding."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Who knows, maybe Guy was tempering her."
"Perhaps."
Luminous finished her pastry and then laid down on the couch she was sitting on.
"Seriously?"
Luminous huffed. "I can act however I wish in my own home."
"Ugh, I always thought you were some sophisticated noble. But then that image was shattered when I got to know you."
Luminous is just a lazy brat. I cannot be convinced otherwise.
Luminous roller her eyes. "I am a Demon Lord, and I act as befitting of my station when I am with others, but if I cannot act how I wish with a friend, then what is the point?"
"I guess that's true. But seriously, you're too lazy. I am taking it upon myself to take you out today!"
"Oh? You will take me out?"
I nodded. "Yeah, we can go out to eat and go around your territory."
Luminous sighed, though I could tell she was concealing a smile. "Very well then, I shall humor you."
I rolled my eyes. Luminous was still acting prideful even after all this. "Sure, sure, whatever you say. Now, let's have fun on our date!"
Luminous' eyes widened. "D-Date?!"
I nodded with a smirk. "Of course! What else could this be?!"
Luminous froze for a moment before nodding. "I suppose this does fit the qualification to be considered a date, according to Hinata."
Seriously? Just what has Hinata been telling Luminous?
And I was joking, too. Perhaps Hinata didn't explain the full meaning of what going on a date means in modern society on Earth. Luminous may just think it is a friendly outing between friends.
Yeah, that's probably it. No way that Luminous Valentine would knowingly go on a date with me, no matter how attractive and sexy I am. Even I would have trouble believing that.
I got up off the loveseat and extended my hand. "Alright, now let's go!"
Luminous rolled her eyes but took my hand nonetheless. I pulled her up and put my hand on her waist as an experiment.
Luminous blushed slightly but didn't say anything, so I guess she was fine with it.
"Do you know anywhere good to eat in Ruberious or Night Garden?"
Luminous nodded. "Exploring Night Garden will be far more enjoyable than Ruberious."
I nodded. This was her territory, and I'm sure she knew it best.
"Alright then, I'll leave what we do up to you then since you probably know this area best."
"Fufu, I recall Hinata mentioning that it was the person who asked for the date who is supposed to plan things out."
Hinata! Keep your mouth shut!
"That is how it traditionally goes, but I don't really know this area. We can go to my territory or Tempest if you want me to take the lead."
Luminous rolled her eyes. "I was simply teasing you."
I could feel a blush creep up on my face. "Ah… well. Can you just teleport us?" I sighed.
Luminous giggled lightly before we were engulfed in a wave of light.
___________________________________________________________________
I am highly motivated by your guys' reviews and likes, so do that! I'll probably keep writing or something.
I have a discord server, come hang out if you want! https://discord.gg/VxR5Gn72Fp I also have a channel in Shiro's Gaming Omniverse.
Links: patreon.com/theogbasilisk
Author's Note:
Hello everyone, we get to see some of the aftermath to Yuuki's death as well as what Felix got out of it.
Thanks to Odin's masterful manipulation over Information Particules I thought it would make sense for Odin to be capable of stopping the evolution of a Unique Skill into an Ultimate Skill, especially when Felix has direct access to the Soul.
Not to mention Odin should easily be capable of deciphering the data inscribed on the Soul as well, giving Felix the data for Mammon.
After all that we get to see Felix and Luminous interactions, something I'm enjoying writing.
The constant teasing can be quite fun to write, and even I'm not quite sure what direction it will all go in, this is just a fun experiment for me to see what I can do.
Anyways, thanks for reading, peace.
Support me if you want to read ahead on pat reon *.com* / theogbasilisk
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