Chapter 343: Fate of the Scarabs

Linvorax

“Subservience, organ harvesting, and eventual release? Or enslavement, organ harvesting, and eventual death?”

As the Heavenly Spark Soul King looked over the twelve of them dispassionately, Linvorax, the Heavenly Scarab of Life, felt his entire body start to shake. But his brothers, Parvorax and Kilvorax, appeared to feel calmer than when the man in front of them had been slaughtering gods more powerful than them with ease, their auras both showing fading fear and rising hope, albeit still tinged with the massive amount of regret they were all feeling.

They should have never agreed to try and hunt down the man in front of them.

“Could you elaborate on what you mean by organ harvesting?” Parvorax, with only a slight amount of fear still showing, asked the godslayer.

“After helping each of you gain the divine role corresponding to your element, I will harvest your hearts and horns.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King’s voice was calm and disinterested, carefully controlled, and his aura was again completely hidden. “Then I will do so again, and again, and again until I have enough materials for my A rank advancement.”

“Got it. Got it.” The amount of nervousness in Parvorax’s aura rose. “And you plan on eventually releasing us?”

The Heavenly Spark Soul King radiated his aura of 6 True Laws again, this time joined by 36 high or peak grade Law Dragons, and Linvorax immediately felt suppressed. The entire universe was pushing against all of them and just being in the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s aura made accessing his own life element True Law much, much more difficult.

Combined with the curse running through each of them, one that was slowly yet steadily growing in power, Linvorax had no illusions the man couldn’t seal them, forcibly enslave them, and then harvest their organs without their consent.

“You are questioning my word?” The Heavenly Spark Soul King looked angry. “Due to Krysta’s request and you helping us in the past, I have offered to let you live so long as I get what I want from your bodies. But you will not be getting a better offer.

“You actively worked to kill me and everyone I hold dear while I saved your lives. You have no moral ground to stand on. And I am powerful enough that you have no strength to bargain with.

“Choose. Either temporary pain or greater temporary pain followed by an eternity of your mind-wiped souls helping me and mine gather faith energy.”

“We choose temporary pain, sir.” Parvorax was quick to say, the rest of them, still in their human forms, all nodding their assent.

But then Parvorax opened his big mouth. “But what do you mean by having saved our lives?”

“The Divine Child’s race is not what he’s shown you. He is a Seven-Headed Peacock Devil. And he is a demonic sin god from another universe, the premier god for all seven sin Laws with his true power lying in devouring.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King summoned out a twelve-story pagoda artifact that towered over all of them, emanating an aura of pure energy of the twelve elements. “He doesn’t train, instead eating other gods to take their powers for his own, his abilities seeming to work best on monster gods. And, from what my wife has confirmed by looking through the memories of your seniors who used to work under him he was raising the twelve of you with the intent to eat you once you gained your divine roles.

“He also isn’t known to be polite enough to eat only part of you and then allow you to regrow that part so you can live healthy and complete lives.”

A portal appeared on each floor of the pagoda and Linvorax felt himself shoved via telekinesis into the tenth floor, the one containing pure death energy, each of his brothers also pushed into the floor containing the power of their opposite element. Then a pair of manacles and fetters of pure death energy appeared, fastened themselves around his wrists and ankles, and he felt his power start to drain, the Heavenly Spark Soul King having seemingly modified the Twelve Element Pagoda Linvorax’s brother Mokvorax, the Heavenly Scarab of Death, had bought for him back during the last Universal Auction. His pure life element divine energy was being drained to seal Mokvorax while Mokvorax’s pure death divine energy was drained to seal him, and the same thing was happening to all of his brothers.

***

Zlar

Zlar, the Master of Coin, elven merchant god of the Divine Child’s faction, fled the Prime Material.

He wasn’t sure what had happened in the war against the United Federation of Planets, but the life stones of the Magician, the Lord of Samsara, and about a fifth of his faction’s other gods had gone dark while the Origin of Life, the Origin of Death, the Radiant Beauty, the Divine Seer, and all twelve of the Heavenly Scarabs were missing, their Territory all taken over by the Heavenly Spark Soul King.

More important, however, the Primordial Sovereign had returned to the Prime Material, started taking over Territories, and even killed two of the messenger race’s gods, yet none of the other elder gods had appeared to stop him.

It was scary times and Zlar, as any good merchant abandoned by his race should, went to the home of his most powerful friend to hide, in this case a mansion on one of the two A rank worlds in the huge size universe controlled by the Collector, the same planet the Collector himself had decided to hide on, along with Xor, an ancient swamp monster who was basically sentient sludge, another powerhouse of a god.

What he hadn’t taken into account, however, was that Xor, the Divine Child’s former inside man among the Prime Material’s monster gods, might have an grudge with a not actually dead divine monster.

“Xor, prepare for your death!” The shout was all the warning they received before a flaming phoenix emanating an aura with six True Laws swooped in and used the full power of her apocalyptic fire to burn about a quarter of Xor’s sludge to ashes, even with the man himself having four True Laws, appearing to sacrifice herself in the attack.

Then, about a week later, when Xor had almost fully recovered, the phoenix somehow arrived again and she again burned through a quarter of Xor’s sludge.

The Collector and Xor both tried to flee, neither caring for Zlar at all, and Zlar watched in horror as the Heavenly Spark Soul King appeared out of stealth behind the green-skinned humanoid Collector, a spear Zlar recognized as the personal weapon of humanity’s God of War in his hands, and cut off the god’s three-eyed head.

The Collector, a god with five True Laws, then proceeded to be cut in half again and again and again as runic suppression arrays appeared around Xor along with a God rank sealing artifact that kept him from fleeing.

The Collector died a few minutes later, even his powerful regeneration nothing in front of the Heavenly Spark Soul King, and then the godslayer just stood up in the sky of the A rank planet for another month, every week an A rank phoenix appearing to sacrifice itself to take out another chunk of the sealed sludge monster god’s power. And Xor eventually died after the sixth attack.

The Heavenly Spark Soul King then left and Zlar finally tried to flee himself, but he couldn’t.

The Heavenly Spark Soul King had taken over the universe, along with the others the Collector and Xor had controlled, and he’d weakened all the portals down to C rank. Zlar couldn’t leave the universe, and he had no idea what the Heavenly Spark Soul King would want from him in the future.

***

Linvorax

Several months passed with no changes, but then Linvorax felt the seal on him weaken.

He didn’t try to escape, however, and just waited.

Then, about half an hour later, a portal opened up to his floor of the tower and his body was pulled out into one of the most fantastical scenes he’d ever experienced in his life.

He and the Heavenly Spark Soul King were inside what appeared to be a one square kilometer box of material stability within what had to be a life element elemental universe.

Sight didn’t work outside the box, there no light element to interact with the photoreceptors in his eyes, and most of his other senses were similarly useless, even the space and time in the universe not something he could even begin to understand.

But to his magical senses? Everything was life, and it was all around him. There was birth without death, creation without destruction, order without chaos, and somehow the universe still functioned.

At the same time, he knew if he stepped outside the box, while he wouldn’t immediately die, he would weaken. And, as the universe almost certainly didn’t have any God rank portals connected to it, he was trapped.

“You’ll be here for the next million years or so.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King moved toward the edge of the box. “And I recommend not trying to get out of this formation. It’s made of twisted spacetime and you don’t have the right Laws to even be able to pass through it, let alone the right skills to escape from this universe.

“The formation will also act as a faith concentrator in addition to a prison, making it easier for you to absorb faith energy corresponding to the divine role of life, so you’re welcome. And being in an elemental universe corresponding to your element should help you purify your energy even further while maybe also giving some hints to advancing your life Law.

“If my calculations are correct, you should gain your divine role in roughly 867,923 years, but that might speed up depending on my wife’s plans. My recommendation is to spend most of your time sleeping.”

With seeming ease, the Heavenly Spark Soul King moved through the twisted spacetime making up the cube of safety around Linvorax and then traveled through the universe to a D rank portal and entered, one that almost instantly increased in power to A rank after he left, probably to allow faith energy from other universes to more easily enter, the man seemingly having perfect control of both the life element elemental universe and the universe on the other side.

Linvorax, reverting to his true form, looking like a dragon covered in chitinous green scales with one large dark green horn coming out of his forehead, then lost himself in watching what he quickly recognized were life elementals moving around his prison cell, only falling out of his meditative trance several thousand years later.

And then he took a several thousand year nap.