Chapter 374: The Power of Preparation and Knowledge

Javandra

Elandra’s automatic defenses were more intense than Javandra had expected, shaking her soul even as she killed the woman, and this made a difference.

When the Heavenly Spark Soul King teleported right behind her, Javandra was a split second too late in responding, and an Elder God ranked bone sword covered in terrifying azure lightning cut off her head.

This, of course, wasn’t enough to kill even an E rank, but a piece of the lightning covering the sword jumped to her head after it was severed and almost instantly devoured it.

Then the sword moved rapidly in the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s hands, cutting off both her arms and legs in just two attacks, and all her limbs were eaten by the lightning as well.

Normally, Javandra would have been able to defend herself, but, at the same time as the Heavenly Spark Soul King had appeared, she’d lost access to her divine roles and the extra stats from her faith energy, and this messed up the energy flow of what those in the Prime Material would refer to as her main class, her power as a a god of the afterlife.

Losing about 90% of one’s battle power would be difficult to adapt to normally, let alone when one was literally missing their brain, and Javandra was not able to recover.

In about the same time it had taken her to kill Elandra, the Heavenly Spark Soul King managed to kill her, and the last thing her soul saw before being captured was the Heavenly Spark Soul King absorbing her soul into his own afterlife, along with Elandra’s and the souls of all the undead who’d died in the undead universes over the last forty plus trillion years whose souls had yet to dissipate in her own previously intact afterlife.

***

Primordius

Cutting off six of Arthur’s heads took almost no time at all.

The man was attacking like a berserker while his energy rapidly disappeared, likely from some new variant of the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s magical plagues. And, finally, there were no undead within range of Primordius’s aura.

This then, for the first time in the fight, allowed him to activate his No Rebirth Domain skill, turning the energy of any healing skills Arthur used into self-damaging lightning. And, given Arthur wasn’t conscious enough to turn off his own healing, the demon died in a matter of seconds.

By this time, however, Primordius had exited the gas cloud his grandson’s clone had left, and he realized the gas’s effect had been to block his sensory skill. Just a few light years away, close enough that he should have been able to sense it, he could pick up traces of a fight between Elandra, the Highest Shade, and his grandson, the effects of their unique Law energies easy to notice. And, given there was still a slight amount of two different varieties of high quality primal energy in the area, it appeared two elder gods had fallen. So, he was either being tricked again or the Highest Shade and Elandra had met their ends, which was worrying.

Primordius, even with how easily he’d managed to kill Arthur, was more exhausted than he had ever been since his years as a mortal.

His grandson’s new way to block his senses was troubling, almost as much as the knowledge he was now likely the last remaining elder god in the multiverse. Fighting so many elder gods at once had drained his mental reserves significantly, leaving him tired. And his energy levels, unlike any time since he’d become a god, were down to half, the diseases within him blocking most of his regeneration.

The fact his grandson had a gas that could block his senses hinted at the likely possibility of the A rank having prepared multiple other plans to deal with him, ones the boy hadn’t yet used while the other elder gods could interfere.

And, worst of all, he could still feel himself being Watched. But he knew chasing down that clone of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, located near a known C rank portal to another universe, would prove useless and just drain him more.

Primordius wanted nothing more than to take a break, but of course his grandson and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception wouldn’t allow him any such luxury.

Right when his energy regeneration was about to again surpass the drain from the plagues inside his body, the bloodline curse acted up again, and this time it was even stronger than before, causing him to realize the reason the curse had stopped was not just as a means to get him to kill Arthur, but due to the time needed to bring whatever altar they were using into the Prime Material.

Before, the curse had been originating from another universe, the portal between that universe and the Prime Material only allowing God rank energy through. But now that the origin of the curse was in the same universe as him, the energy powering the curse changed from being practically the highest possible grade for God rank to low grade Elder God rank, and this resulted in the energy and concentration he needed to fight it off doubling from before.

At exactly the same time, a bullet appeared out of a portal behind him, his senses showing a clone of the Heavenly Spark Soul King through it, seventeen galaxies away and holding an Elder God rank sniper rifle artifact, likely the transformed form of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception’s weapon. And there was something very off about the bullet, but Primordius couldn’t tell what as the projectile was coated with the same gaseous substance which had blocked his senses earlier.

He tried to move, to dodge, but the bullet followed him, changing directions at rapid speed in response to his every movement. And it was fast, filled with energy, allowing it to get closer and closer.

Then, when it was within 300 kilometers of him, the bullet exploded, a bolt of azure lightning firing at him, entering into the storm revolving around his body and penetrating into his energy.

At first, he didn’t understand what was going on. The lightning bolt was obviously a variant of royal lightning, and he was the supreme controller of royal lightning in the multiverse.

But then he felt it.

The royal lightning was just a container for a different type of energy, a means to allow that energy to be injected right into his body, and that different type of energy was the power of undeath. And the amount was staggering, containing the essence of all previously living undead in the multiverse other than a couple elder gods.

Primordius’s soul was suddenly filled with undeath energy, and the power of that energy reversed his normal control over the life and death elements.

His natural healing quickly started to do massive amounts of damage to his body and soul before he forcibly turned his healing off, and it took another large part of his concentration to keep himself from transforming into a different entity, his soul taking even more damage as he resisted the energy’s attempt to destroy him and reforge his soul and body into a new undead elder god.

The power of undeath was originally created by Nastorix as a means to counter his No Rebirth Domain skill, reversing its effect, with undead healing from his skill instead of taking damage. So, when the Prime Lich’s invention was injected into him, it was like having his No Rebirth Domain turned onto himself, only so much worse.

Still, given his many years of fighting against Nastorix and the other undead, it would only take him a few minutes to rid himself of the undeath energy pervading his body, even while fighting against the bloodline curse. But, of course, the planning of his grandson and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception would have taken that into account.

Just when he was at his weakest, another clone of the Heavenly Spark Soul King appeared in front of him, holding the sword he’d left inside one of Arthur’s heads, and Primordius then sensed the last words that would ever be spoken to him as the Heavenly Spark Soul King transmitted them to him via mana.

“Grandfather, you shouldn’t have made yourself such an object of hatred to so many undead. It made tricking their souls into thinking you killed them so much easier.”

The clone then activated multiple berserking skills, enhanced his sword, armor, and especially his wing artifact—which contained some power that weakened Primordius’s cultivation technique in its presence—to the point he easily bypassed the thunderstorm from Primordius’s Stormlord’s Presence skill, and then sacrificed a large fraction of the undead souls previously housed in the Highest Shade’s soulbound afterlife, increasing the quality of his energy to an even more ridiculous degree and raising his stats to be at least a match for Primordius’s own.

Then the clone moved, and Primordius was cut in half at the waist, still unable to heal himself, his legs and the lower part of his torso quickly succumbing to the power of undeath before being completely eaten by a small spark of energy the Heavenly Spark Soul King released from his left hand, a spark that then transformed itself into an azure lightning bolt that hit Primordius in the chest, transferring the undeath energy back to his body and soul.

His left arm then received the same treatment, followed by his right. And then he lost his torso as the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s clone cut off his head.

The last thing Primordius thought as his head was then devoured completely by the power of undeath and the curse energy from the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, was that maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to deliberately make an enemy out of the most talented truesoul in the entire known multiverse.

***

Mila

Stepping out from the Babylon I space station and dispersing the smoke they’d used to keep Primordius from being able to find it, Mila’s soul entered into another session of enlightenment as her plans yet again succeeded.

Primordius had allowed too much information about him to be released, so, while the man was a monster, they’d been able to prepare for him more than any of the other elder gods.

And now it was over.

There were no more threats, no more enemies with any degree of power.

They were free.

Soon, Aalam would become the master of the Prime Material and all the other known universes in the area, leaving the United Federation of Planets in charge of everything.

And Mila herself, well, maybe she could finally truly relax.

Instead of plotting the downfall of the multiverse’s elder gods, maybe she could take up a hobby.

Knitting might be fun.