Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1304: Alternative Route



Eofel.

The golden goblet in Fulgardt's hand melted, the wine that had been stowed within it boiling to evaporation within seconds. It took no effort to see that the Immoral was incensed. Fulina, who had been the one to deliver the goblet into his hands shook. She feared the wine might not have been to his liking, but Rias reassured her that she had nothing to do with Fulgardt's rage. He should know.

"Calm down, will you? Just because someone closed one door doesn't mean another cannot be opened. We did talk of alternative routes," the EverSword heir said from the opposite end of the table.

Fulgardt gave him a malevolent glare.

"Easy for you to say," he said acidly. "I had it all planned. We could have completed one of the three conditions required for you to become a Divine simply by bringing Maqi under our heel. But that little skeleton dared....!"

Hot steam burst from Fulgardt's nostrils.

How Skullius had embarrassed him back in Maqi was eating away at his dignity. No. His dignity was all but gone. Now his sanity was the one that was being eaten away. In front of a few dozen mortals, Skullius had humiliated and outplayed him and he had been forced to just take it.

For an instant, the entire building seemed to glow, burned by a ferocious heat from Fulgardt's Broader Existence.

Barring how Skullius had found out about his secret, his hindering of Fulgardt's plans - inadvertently – was almost equally as infuriating.

Fulgardt had not sought to acquire the loyalty of the Maqians for some sort of shallow, prideful play or to get back at his home nation for how they shunned and rejected him in his time.

No.

First, Fulgardt had planned to bless the Maqians with gifts through his Insurgent Magnus class to acquire their loyalty. To invoke this power though, the recipients needed to be zealous and welcoming of him. They needed to view him a friendly manner and accept what he had to offer and he couldn't cheat this requirement.

After he had acquired this, Fulgardt had wanted to use the entire population of Maqians to help Rias complete the Mortal Binding requirement of Divinity (where one individual had to infuse their essence into many blessed beings). With how powerful the Maqians were, this would have been a cinch.

As for the other requirements, Fulgardt had remedies. One of them laid in the Labyrinth of the Yoke, which Skullius had denied him access to.

Fulgardt's fury grew.

"I will get that brat back," he declared.

"I have no doubts about that," Rias said. "But for now, perhaps we should go with the alternative path we discussed?"

Fulgardt simmered down at once.

"Very well then. If you are that confident in your mastery over Undeath., be my guest. Just don't die in the process," he said.

Rias gave a soft chuckle.

"I am already dead."

***

The Noboboyama seemed omnipotent against the waves of Cavern that relentlessly attacked the duo on the [Entropy's Harmonising Nimbus].

Skullius had imbued a Fractional Territory within it (a limited Majestic Territory) and thus, it could expel some of the Primary attack functions of Aphotic Catacomb of the Daemon. It released a piercing light from the [Heart of Revelation], stripping enemies of their defences and then cutting them up using slashes that the possessed Skullius had programmed into its Imaginary GeoScape; because of this, the Phantasmic Retainer was capable of operating on its own without Skullius' input whatsoever.

"Hope you weren't getting too impatient," Skullius said to Elita as the nimbus surged, heading further north in Pelian.

"Not at all. Like I said, I really needed to replenish my Voided Death Essence. I'm determined to deal with this myself if it can be helped. I just hope we're not too late," the former Paladin Champion said anxiously.

"I doubt it. At best, the Purity failed to create whatever monster you envision and at worst, well... maybe only a handful of lives were lost when creating the Divine monster, and it really isn't all that powerful." Skullius fixed his blank gaze on her. "Tell me truthfully though. Was this really all just a hunch? Earlier, you said it was just conjecture and you'd just randomly pieced together details you remembered about the Cursed Bloods, and that Paladin Champion. Was that all true?"

Elita gave him a smile.

"I wasn't lying. It's all true. Maybe I got homesick some time out there in the great void and searched for a reason to hurry home, but I believe I am right," she said.

The reason Elita had returned was because she believed people like her, Cursed Bloods (those with ancestors who served as vessels for the Deities back during the Second Grand War and were cursed for it) were being used for a nefarious plot by the Purity. She thought that the second most powerful Paladin Champion was in on it too since she was hardly ever seen.

Elita thought that the Purity was abusing the cursed trait of Cursed Bloods, which made them vulnerable to illness, pairing that with the second ranked Paladin Champion's Divine Blessing, which allowed her to control plagues, in order to create some kind of Divine monster that they could use to control the situation on Aigas.

Elita's stalwart disposition cracked slightly.

"There was something else though," she said.

Skullius frowned.

"What?"

Elita looked sullen all of a sudden.

"There are many worlds like ours out there, you know. Worlds that form some kind of religion and get so lost in it in that they decide that waiting on the Deities is foolish and take matters in their own hands in the name of said religion. I've been to a few like that. The story is almost always exactly the same. Warped perception leads to hubris, and that hubris leads to mortals creating something they don't understand."

"I for one understand what the Purity is like. The nine that decide the Purity's course would do anything to keep the order, Skullius. Believe me. Maybe, by some luck, I arrived just in time

to put a stop to it."

Skullius' gaze lingered on the former Paladin Champion and then he nodded.

"Well, I hope you're wrong. I'd rather find that the Purity was just running out of Knights to send out and ended up just holing themselves up to read their scriptures in peace," he said.

Elita smiled.

"Yeah. I'd also prefer that."