Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1397: Stand-In Apostle (2)



"Are you sure you want to demonstrate your power in front of Void users?" Serenity asked right as Skullius was prompting his nimbus to use [Apostles' Liege] on the goblin corpse. "Do you trust them now?"

Skullius shook his head.

'Not at all,' he said to her and made a sweep of the room. 'Trust is far from something I will willingly give anyone new to my company, even Elita. I'm sure that even with our little moments, she still has her reservations too. We might have opened up to each other, but it will take some time to repair any bond we might have had before.'

"Then why are you so casually showing off your powers? I understand that allowing them to listen in to your explanation to Red Rage might have been passable since they wouldn't glean much from it but this?"

'Don't worry about that, Serenity. You know as well as I do that the Nullmancer power is far from being a secret or an ace up my sleeve now. Even if they understand its mechanics and try to use it against me in the future, I have a new Class that applies concepts beyond their

imaginations. So, let them see what I have in my Default Body.'

Serenity let out a scoff.

Skullius had an interesting relationship with his War Body. Or rather, his War Body had an interesting dynamic. It was both terrible and amazing, reliable and unreliable. But all in all, it did contain all of Skullius' ingenuity, and all that others gleaned from his Default Body - unbeknownst to them - was scrap.

Of course, Serenity understood that Skullius wasn't willing to completely shut off these allies of his. Him allowing them to witness how he used his Null Life powers was a way for him to try and reach out to them to form a veritable relationship; he wouldn't pass up the chance to create an alliance with other anomalies. No one could survive on their own in the wider reality after all.

Thus, as everyone watched, Skullius' [Entropy's Harmonising Nimbus] lurched forth and bathed the goblin corpse on the floor. Bits of Ju`wtte and a ton of Null Life Essence gushed and devoured it whole.

[Apostles' Liege] was activated right then.

The [Entropy's Harmonising Nimbus] was created from a collection of Skullius' Class skills - Nullmancer Class skills. It pretty much acted as a control system that he used to activate the effects of those abilities he had as a Nullmancer.

Guidance field panels poured in Skullius' vision, but he ignored them.

When it came to summoning an Apostle, the quality of the corpse was important since it formed a baseline for what kind of power the Apostle it produced would start with. Additionally, if the quality of the corpse was great enough, some of its racial qualities and abilities could even be retained as it awakened as an Apostle.

Unfortunately, the goblin corpse was not really anything special, at least when compared to Skullius' last Apostle.

Even with the boost to Skullius' Class, which made it so that each Apostle Skullius summoned would automatically be raised to the Fourth Tier, the goblin wasn't exactly a match for any of Skullius' old Apostles. At least that was what Skullius assumed.

Even Ferex was on a higher plane, he was sure.

Desperate as the Apostle was to prove himself, he had actually picked up a few interesting things from being in Caxellac, but Skullius had forbidden him from using any of it on Aigas - unless he was in fatal danger, of course.

Yet nonetheless, Skullius and everyone else watched as the result emerged from the mad cloud.

It was... a goblin, but not like any Skullius had ever seen.

"Huh?" He was taken aback.

The goblin had grown to thrice its previous size and beyond that, its entire body had changed. It was no longer flesh. It looked like a giant sculpture of scarlet diamond or maybe ice - it was hard to tell. Its details were incredibly sharp. Its face spotted two large, lamp-like eyes issuing glaring white lights, a large pointed nose, and a wide mouth drawn in a grin. It had two pairs of pointed ears and a large icy, diamond-y beard that reached its waist.

It might have been a troll with how blocky its torso was.

But there were two features that distinguished the creature from the rest.

A top hat made from glowing characters that looked like 10s floated over its head and a great staff of a similar nature was in its hand, looking more conceptual than material.

Skullius was astonished.

'Why do I get the feeling that I suddenly summoned something unusually special,' he thought, but then he reeled all the more. 'HOLD ON! I didn't even decide this Apostle's race!'

Sila found himself squinting at the goblin. Before even Skullius, he noticed the cores hidden deep within the goblin's body; seventeen cores, all holding seventeen different types of Null Life Essence.

'It must be because Serenity used my body before. I'm terribly sensitive to this stuff now,' Sila thought.

When Skullius sensed the seventeen cores of power himself, he gave a light gasp.

The goblin quickly got on one knee.

Araeyn and Red Rage gave it wary looks. For some reason, they felt threatened by this new addition and they both couldn't tell why. It certainly wasn't because it was innately stronger than both of them, and that confused them all the more.

"My Liege..." the Apostle said and it looked at Skullius. "Why do you appear especially surprised with me? Did you, perchance, expect so little from me?"

...!!!

Skullius gaped.

What?

What did the Apostle say? How did it know?

"Please. Allow me the chance to demonstrate my worth," the Apostle continued.

"Skullius!" Serenity suddenly called right then.

"What?" Skullius cried aloud.

He got an ugly sense of déjà vu. What was it now? Was another Apostle going to screw him

over?

"Skullius! You have struck gold!" Serenity said. There was a bizarre cheer in her voice. "You've just summoned a..."

But the Apostle beat Serenity to the punch.

He made Skullius aware of what he was excitedly and with great confidence.

"You may yet understand, my Liege. I am a Nulliergrapher - one who divides territories in the Null Verse. I may yet be valuable to you."