Chapter 368: Lies and Deception

Elandra

Seeing the Mistress of Oaths and Deception and the Heavenly Spark Soul King interfering in the battle again, cursing the old lightning bastard and increasing the suppression from the universe on him and only him, Elandra grew excited. Sure, they were interfering with all sides, and possibly wanted her to die as well, but Primordius was quite a bit more powerful than she’d expected, even when he wasn’t using his most dangerous skill due to the presence of the undead. So, she could use the help.

She just wished the help wouldn’t also have annoying side effects.

Either the method Primordius used to fight against the curse or possibly something about the curse itself had increased the old lightning bastard’s soul defenses, to just above the level a clone created by her Phantasmic Doppelgängers skill could bypass. And this created problems.

Sure, Primordius was suppressed by the universe while everyone else wasn’t, slowing him down and decreasing his effective battle power by about 5%. And, sure, the bloodline curse was taking a good chunk of his concentration to fight against, lowering his effective battle power by about 10% and almost certainly waiting to produce some devastating effects if they could get some good hits in. But the sudden loss of the support of her doppelgänger, previously the strongest interfering power on the battlefield, had a much more major effect.

Taking advantage of her inability to do anything to him, Primordius escaped their encirclement and quickly started to flee toward the universe’s portal to the Primordial Thunder Universe, arriving there in only a couple of seconds. And, given his speed, he temporarily managed to escape the senses of all the elder gods fighting him other than her, who’d left a doppelgänger in the area around the portal to account for just such a move by the man.

When he arrived near the planet with the portal, however, just like her, he sensed the Mummy Lord and the Lord of the Nightwalkers in the middle of activating hundreds of powerful formations built into the undead side of that battlefield, and he didn’t take the risk of running into whatever trap the two undead had planned, instead fleeing back toward the portal to the Prime Material Elandra’s main body was still located next to.

He, unlike her, didn’t seem to have noticed that the faith energy emissions of the two undead elder gods were just a tad off from what they should have been, the undead seemingly just masks and not the actual elder gods.

“Here. For you!” The Mummy Lord, or more likely a doppelgänger or clone of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception or the Heavenly Spark Soul King, teleported an information orb of a very high rank right in front of her doppelgänger, an information orb she quickly accepted and started absorbing the information from. “Grandfather is quite a bit more powerful than we were expecting, so why don’t we help you with your revenge rather than playing both sides.”

The information in the orb, which, even through her doppelgänger, she was able to absorb in just a few fractions of a second, contained three important bits of information. First, it outlined what the clones or doppelgängers on the battlefield around the portal to the Primordial Thunder Universe were doing, working to activate the undead’s prebuilt formations to decrease the power of the portal to the point only normal gods could pass through, possibly even only mortals. Second, it contained the schematics of all the prebuilt formations built into the planet on the undead side of the Endless Battlefield, along with instructions on how to activate them and exactly what their effects were. Finally, third, it contained an apology for accidentally killing her third clone, stating that their goal had been only to gain more materials to better empower their bloodline curse.

Given the bloodline curse they were using, at least as far as Elandra could tell, was making direct use of the souls of the old bastard’s dead children, along with the souls of his divine descendants, Elandra mostly believed them, though it was also entirely possible they wanted the body and soul of her only living descendant so they could do the same to her. Whatever the case, she didn’t trust the husband and wife pair at all. The quality of the illusions of the Mummy Lord and the Lord of the Nightwalkers meant it was likely the pair had killed the two elder gods when they were off on their own, and this meant they were powerful enough to participate in the fight more directly if the remaining elder gods were reduced in number and weakened from the fight.

This didn’t mean, however, that she wouldn’t make use of the information she’d been given, her other doppelgänger quickly transmitting the relevant formation information to Arthur and messaging the remaining three undead elder gods to ask if they’d like to continue to cooperate.

“The Heavenly Spark Soul King is working to drain the portal leading to the Primordial Thunder Universe, blocking Primordius from fleeing that way. Are you willing to continue working with me and the demon to kill the lightning bastard while he’s weakened and in this universe?”

“Who is responsible for killing our people?” the Empress of Vampires sent, their conversation occurring as fast as their mana transmissions and incredibly powerful Spirit stats could allow.

“Most likely the Heavenly Spark Soul King.”

“And you’re working with him?” The Empress of Vampires continued speaking for the three undead as they all followed Elandra’s doppelgänger and Arthur toward the portal to the Prime Material.

“No. He and his wife seem to be trying to stir the pot so as many of us elder gods as possible die. But they’re still mortals, so they’ll naturally die of old age, while this is the best chance we’ll have to kill the old thunder bastard.”

She’d already fed the undead false information on the level of threat the Heavenly Spark Soul King and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception would pose in the future to make them more focused on Primordius, and she saw no reason not to use their incorrect understanding to get them to do what she wanted.

“Alright.”

The Empress of Vampires sent the word, but Elandra could feel the subtle shift in the auras of the undead. They’d work with her, but they’d also try to have her and Arthur take more damage if possible, even more so than they’d already been doing.

Still, it was the best case scenario Elandra could ask for. And they all arrived at the undead side of the Endless Battlefield, where her real body had started the process of activating the formations, about ten seconds before Primordius would reach the area.

And this gave her the chance to pass control over the formations to the three undead, whose energy was much more suited to running them.

Then, while the undead were busy, she made another doppelgänger over her true body, used an illusion mixed with her Stealth skill to hide, and tried to move back to the Prime Material for safety.

But, of course, the formation she’d previously activated, which made it hard for even Primordius, who was much better than her at pure destructive offensive attacks, to quickly return, had been activated again, and she was almost certain it was no longer taking extra energy given it had to be the Heavenly Spark Soul King who was powering it.

Instead of telling the undead about the man’s actions, however, which would split their focus from fighting Primordius, she instead snuck back to the position of her doppelgänger and acted like she’d never tried to flee.

Then, just as Primordius arrived, she fully set up the illusions she had planned, which hid the presence of the undead elder gods and the active formations, along with Arthur, and silently prayed to her dead family that Primordius fell for it.

And, when he arrived, for at least the fraction of a second needed for her to activate her Emotional Manipulation skill on him, it did, the man only able to see her, and her skill penetrated his soul defenses far more easily than she’d been expecting.

She was able to push surprise, shock, and indecision into his mind, causing him to pause in the solar system above the undead planet covered in formations, and this allowed Arthur to sneak up behind him and push him into the sky of the planet, right into the exact position where the undead formations would have their greatest effect.

Energy of undeath left the planet’s formations in the form of six illusory snakes that wrapped up around him, restricting Primordius’s movements and sending undeath energy into his body, causing more damage than anyone had been able to inflict on him in trillions of years, and the fight entered into a new phase.

Arthur moved forward and attacked with his sin flames at full power, Elandra continued to try and influence Primordius’s emotions to make him feel fear and helplessness, and the three undead elder gods focused on powering the formations, not willing to get close at all.

With the three other parties in the fight all focused on him, Primordius was quickly put in a very bad spot. And, so long as nothing big changed, the old thunder bastard would die.

So, of course, something very, very big changed.

Without warning, a phoenix shaped goddess flew out from the portal to the Prime Material, the one which the Heavenly Spark Soul King was almost certainly guarding, and flew right into the middle of the elder god battle.

“This is for killing my family.” And, with a cry in the phoenix language, she self destructed, her energy and form not exploding but instead transforming into trillions upon trillions of magical microorganisms that swarmed into both Elandra’s and Primordius’s bodies.

Immortalia had been alive.

Her mother had been alive.

And now her mother had killed herself to get revenge, even unknowingly attacking her own daughter because she’d been so damn secretive.