Chapter 371: Revenge and the Eating of Heads

Bellessia

It had been four days, four days during which Bellessia would have died over two hundred times had her daughter and the dragon not been using her for training. And she was growing tired.

She’d been burnt. She’d been frozen. Necrotic magic from death element spirits had caused her legs and arms to wither before life element spirits revitalized them. And she’d been stabbed everywhere, multiple times.

For a while, she’d been hoping her father or someone else would come rescue her, but it never happened.

The universe they were in was empty of all life. The portals in and out of the universe only allowed mortals through. And her daughter and the dragon just wouldn’t leave her alone.

She knew she was going to die, and part of her had come to peace with the idea.

So, when her most powerful son, or at least a clone of him, appeared nearby, she was almost relieved.

“The curse isn’t quite strong enough, so we need her soul,” the Heavenly Spark Soul King said to his sister and the dragon as he moved closer. Then, without any warning, Bellessia felt herself die.

If she’d been more powerful, she would have noticed the disease cells in her body all explode at once, but she wasn’t. One second she was looking at the Heavenly Spark Soul King and the next her soul was strapped to a table in a white room somewhere within one of his soulstructures, a pair of golden eyes looking down at her with the same type of expression she used to give mortals.

***

Primordius

Primordius had not been so exhausted for a long, long time.

Four days of having to fight off a magical curse. Four days of having to resist diseases eating away at his energy and his lightning. Four days of combating four elder gods, three of which were some of the best the multiverse had ever produced.

He’d lost limbs. He’d been stabbed in the torso fifteen times. And now, as if in slow motion to his senses, his head was severed by the Highest Shade, flying over toward the Corpse Devourer.

Sure, it was part of his plan, the rest of his body exploding to get rid of a good portion of the diseases that had built up too much, damaging Arthur and the Highest Shade in the process. And, sure, when his head was then eaten by the Corpse Devourer, the ghoul unable to resist just like he’d expected, it allowed him to release his energy to burn and kill the undead from the inside. But it was demeaning and disgusting.

More important, it was risky.

Had the two parties attacking him not been wary of each other, and of his grandson and the boy’s wife’s interference, they probably could have killed him.

Instead, as his head recovered almost instantly and a new body grew out of its neck, he was protected when the inevitable interference came.

Immortalia, somehow not dead, appeared again from a sudden spacetime portal obviously created by his grandson and, at the same time, the Corpse Lord’s soul was somehow stolen away through said portal before it closed. Then, as Elandra uncharacteristically paused, the same as she’d done the last time, Immortalia’s body and soul exploded for a second time and all the energy from both again began to transform into magical diseases that invaded into his, Elandra’s, and this time Arthur’s bodies.

“Mom.”

As Elandra spoke the word in an ancient monster dialect from before she’d supposedly been born, Primordius, who’d been prepared for her to possibly freeze up again as soon as he’d seen the phoenix, took a chance and moved close to her with a newly created spear. And, at the same time, he was lucky that, as he’d predicted might happen, a doppelgänger of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception appeared from where the Phoenix had been, seemingly having been hidden inside the monster’s body, and also blew itself up.

As his spear reached out toward Elandra, Arthur, who was as close to the phoenix’s explosion as he'd been, appeared to lose his connection to all faith energy like had already happened to Primordius, making it impossible for the demon to immediately adjust to his lowered speed and move to protect his mistress. And, while the Highest Shade sadly wasn’t hit by the effect, she’d moved back to dodge as soon as the phoenix had arrived. So, there was no one to protect Elandra from his attack.

Storm Strike.

Forgoing some of the defense he would have otherwise put up against the new diseases entering into his body, Primordius poured as much energy as he could spare into his attacking skill and his spear entered into Elandra’s gut, tearing a large hole through her digestive system before he had to dodge back to avoid attacks from Arthur and the Highest Shade.

Yes, Elandra would be able to heal herself from the attack within a few seconds even if she wasn’t as skilled at the process as he was. But she would waste energy and time, giving the diseases that had just entered into her body a better chance to take hold, something that could prove fatal in a longer battle.

Meanwhile, he’d just learned how to mostly rid himself of the diseases created through Immortalia’s first death, so he wasn’t that worried about this next batch.

Then, however, he realized the new diseases in his body were all different from the old ones. Several, likely ones meant to target Arthur, did nothing to his human body, but the others, especially three varieties that seemed like modified versions of the ones that had previously eaten away at his lightning, he slowly realized were far more dangerous than the diseases from before. And, just as he was starting to figure out a better way to combat them, the bloodline curse the Mistress of Oaths and Deception was using on him grew about eight percent stronger.

***

Mila

“So, do you think Elandra is actually Firellia?” Aalam asked as he finished adding his mother’s body and soul to the altar Mila was using to curse Primordius, Mila having already charmed the goddess’s soul and altered its karmic energy to make both her and the universe think Primordius had killed her.

“I’d say there’s about a 75% chance.” As she updated the curse on Primordius and continued to Watch the elder gods’ fight using her one remaining clone in the Prime Material, Mila answered, though not quickly as the curse and her Watching required a lot of attention.

Firellia had been Immortalia’s daughter, the phoenix goddess whose body Aalam used to help generate the revival racial abilities of their race during their A rank advancements. And, while her Laws had been more combat focused, not the emotional Laws Elandra specialized in, there was quite a bit of overlap. So, Mila could see Elandra’s Laws resulting from the phoenix being reborn as a human in a similar manner to Immortalia’s soul takeovers before she met Aalam.

Given how Immortalia had survived when everyone thought she had died, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think her daughter, who had the same racial abilities, skills, and uniquenesses that made such a revival possible, could have as well.

“It doesn’t really make a difference, though.” Mila smiled as she realized Primordius was finally losing more energy than he was recovering for the first time in the fight. “Either she is Firellia and she’s released a soul plague we need to find the solution for, in which case getting Immortalia to ask for the blueprint might work, or she’s not and she’s playing some kind of angle.

“Whatever the case, there’s too much of a risk to treat her any differently, so the goal is still her death and the subsequent capture of her soul.

“If she truly is your master’s daughter, we’ll just treat her a little better than our other enemies.”

“Hmm.” Mila could feel Aalam’s discomfort through their bond. “I still think we should at least tell Immortalia.”

“Sure.” Mila reached out a hand to touch Aalam’s shoulder, her husband standing next to her as he put more energy into the Babylon I and used Supreme Artifact Enhancement on it to help empower the altar. “I have no problems with her knowing. And she’s wise enough not to do anything stupid based on the information.

“Please do emphasize, however, that the information could be wrong and Elandra’s reactions could easily be a trap.”

***

Diana

Diana didn’t know how she felt after Aalam finally killed their mother.

She wasn’t happy. That’s for sure.

Instead, she just felt kind of empty.

The woman, despite having helped raise her until Aalam was born, had never been someone she’d been particularly close to, likely because Bellessia had distanced herself from the beginning, already planning on sacrificing them for her own gain. And the death of her and Isaiah’s unborn daughter was so long ago that the rage from her death had lessened considerably.

Instead, after learning more about her and Aalam’s grandfather, Diana found her mother rather pitiful. And it was hard to feel satisfaction from her death.

Whatever the case, their revenge was now complete. Their mother was dead. And there just wasn’t much more to it.