Chapter 593 - Get forked

Author's note:

Hey hey! Happy new year!

I don't know what demon possessed me to decide that I was going to come back on January first, that was, obviously, a dire strategic mistake. But fear not, no mere hangover is going to stop me, so here's your chapter, enjoy :D

Sofia and Alith were having a relaxing picnic under the bone trees of Zangdar on the eve of their expedition. Sofia bit down into a strange purple fruit she had bought from a merchant at the sect, when she started to feel a bit nauseous.

“You look unwell,” Alith immediately noticed, “It is poisonous?”

Sofia shook her head, “No, it’s quite good, this is unrelated. The skill is just about ready, I think, my mana circuits are starting to move around…”

“Oh! About time. Can’t wait to see whether my advice was good or not.”

“Well… Hopefully your grandfather wasn’t making up the stories he taught you,” Sofia said, “the censoring didn’t make the choice any easier either, but oh well…”

“My first trial took place in one of the countries he had taught me about, and he also taught me about the pyramids, and not only did we find one in this world too, but Zarrow was pretty adamant that they were a thing. I wouldn’t put it past my grandpa to have embellished things a bit, but he wouldn’t straight up lie,” Alith defended.

“Right, right, well renowned travelling minstrel… Yet you ended up living alone in a mountain hut collecting herbs. And you don’t know any instruments.”

“He still had all the instruments and trinkets from all around the world, so I can at least say for sure that this was true. It’s just that he had to retire due to his shaking hands sickness,” Alith explained with a shrug. “Either way, this specific mythology was very entertaining to learn about, I wish I remembered more, but more than the gods, what I liked were the creatures. Ever since I learned about chimeras being real here, I’ve been wondering if the others are too. Even though the chimeras are a bit different than how my grandpa described them.”

“Wait, chimeras were a thing from that mythology of your world?” Sofia asked.

“Yep. There was a story about a chimera and a winged horse, though I don’t remember the details. Haven’t found a winged horse here so far, think they exist?”

Sofia thought about it, trying to remember about all the creatures she had read about, but a winged horse wasn’t really among them. “Hmm… the closest thing are maybe the Soguvas?”

Alith shook her head, “No… Soguvas are like big fluffy flying sheep, and they don’t even have wings. The flying horse is supposed to be like, dashing and majestic… Oh there was a story about a Snake-haired monster lady that can turn people to stone. Haven’t found one of those yet but knowing that petrification curses actually exist, who knows.”

Sofia reeled back a bit at the mention of petrification curses. “I’ve had enough of those. Between turning to stone in that dungeon and turning to gold against the dwarf, I don’t know what it is about them exactly but they’re really scary.”

“That, they are. So, is the skill coming or not?”

“Not yet,” Sofia answered, “But it just took up one of the Active slots, so that’s already a good start.”

“I apologize in advance if the skill turns out to be shit,” Alith said lightheartedly, before chomping on the untouched sandwich she had been holding all that time.

“It certainly was a weird combination of words, but that it took so long to create has to be a good sign. The dagger has even been heating up because it was working so hard, that’s something it had never done before.”  

“I’m not sure a dagger catching a fever is good news, but we’ll know soon enough.”

“Correction, we’ll know right now! It’s ready!” Sofia announced. Her eyes grew wider as she read the skill name, “Hey Alith… I think that worked.”

“Really?! Has the name changed a lot?”

“It’s completely different, but in a good way,” Sofia started, “From ‘Ichor of Golden fork’... I present,” she continued, before opening the description window for Alith and Pareth to see, “Avatar of Zeus!”

“NO FUCKING WAY IT WORKED! And it’s not even censored?!”

[Avatar of Zeus]: Reality inspires myth, myth inspires reality.

Your blood progressively charges up with divine lightning as you inflict lightning damage in combat, you may only activate this skill when fully charged.

Become the Avatar of Zeus for a short duration, fully replenishing your health, stamina and mana, while unleashing a lightning storm around you.

For as long as the Avatar form lasts, you gain:

-Immunity to all negative status effects.

-Immunity to lightning.

-50% increased healing received.

-50% increased lightning damage inflicted.

-All your damage is lightning damage.

-Limited lightning authority.

-Lust.

When the Avatar form expires, for the next hour:

-Receive 20% increased damage from all sources.

-Effective magic range decreased to 1 meter.

-All mana costs are doubled.

“Fully replenishing mana…” Sofia read out loud, “Even without the rest, that’s already…”

“It’s not even the best part!” Alith excitedly interrupted, “Complete immunity to all negative status! That’s crazy good! Not to mention the lightning part! AVATAR OF MOTHERFUCKING ZEUS!”

“S- so… Who’s Zeus? Can you explain now? The ‘lust’ part especially?!”

“Oh, that… Yeah that’s… I mean… That’s Zeus… It’s uh…” Alith started, “Hey, actually it does seem like the censoring is lifting quite a bit. I’m not blanking out at all this time, so… Zeus. He’s like, the king of Gods who controls lightning, as you can guess. There’s plenty of stories about him but I don’t remember many things aside from the basics, which are that he’s that super powerful lightning god, that he liked to transform into animals to chase human maidens, and that he killed his father, the god of time,” she recounted, trying to remember the stories from her childhood.

Sofia did her best to keep her expression neutral through it. The idea of a lustful god disguising itself as an animal to pursue mortal ladies was a bit of a strange thought, and slightly worrying considering that one word in her skill, but all worries about that were quickly eclipsed by the last factoid coming out of Alith’s memories.

Zeus killed time.

Yeah. Right.

Ahah… Just a myth, right? No basis in reality. Not at all…

Was there really no magic on the heroes’ planet?

Meanwhile, as Sofia’s mind ran wild drawing connections between a supposedly fictitious god and the Deep, Alith kept on blabbering about this unknown pantheon from another planet. “... and I was worried the skill would end up being about his brother with the word fork since he wields a trident but it seems the dagger got the metaphor about lightning, that’s a relief, else you might have gotten avatar of- Ah, this one’s still censored for some reason… Well anyway, it still wouldn’t have been too bad, but this is clearly much better. Anyway, should we try it?”

“Huh?” Alith’s suggestion pulled Sofia out of her spiraling thoughts, “Try it? Right now?”

“Yeah? Just hit me a few times with a bolt until you can activate it, no?” Alith suggested without a care in the world, “better to try it before we go to the moon, just in case.”

“I- Are you alright Alith? Why would I hit you?”

Alith shrugged, “Why not, Sof? You need to inflict damage, and I can take it. Might as well try. Also I kinda wanna see how Dopple holds up against your attacks now. I rarely ever get hurt at all these days.”

“That’s… I was thinking of just trying it out on a monster? Or a skeleton? Not to mention, I don’t want to mess up Zangdar with a lightning storm.”

“Oh, true. We need to be careful about Remia… Well, there’s got to be some place near the sect we can go to try it out. I wonder if there’s a lightning god out there that will get mad at you for using ‘lightning authority’ if it’s what it sounds like.”

Sofia nodded along, “Is this not what I already do with [Mockery of the divine] anyway? Maybe if there is a lightning god, I could get more than ‘limited’ authority by using both at once? Haven’t heard of a lightning god, though.”

“Didn’t you say that Connections guy is made of lightning?” 

“He is but he’s the god of Connections, as the name implies, not lightning… Not even a real god either, just an Archangel…”

“Ah yes, ‘just’ an Archangel. The same kind that snapped that level 500 sculptor guy out of existence. Doesn’t sound far from an actual god to me. Anyway, let’s get out and try it already!”

Sofia laughed lightly, “You sound more excited about it than me.”

“Damn right I am! Let’s go!” 

Alith grabbed Sofia’s hand and the two women disappeared from Zangdar in an instant.

Pareth had been left behind. He shook his head with a silent sigh and started cleaning the leftovers of the abandoned picnic. To his surprise, Alith reappeared seconds later.

“You’re not coming? Come on, it’s going to be fun!” She grabbed the picnic basket out of Pareth’s hand, and got a hold of his skeletal fingers.

Not long after, another skeleton looked outside through the window of his room, surprised that his link to Sofia had suddenly grown faint. Standing on his book form like a stepstool, Bookie pressed his skull against the glass and scrutinized the forest of bone trees, but there were no traces of anyone being out there, aside from the sleeping Dryad.

“Didn’t they say they were going to go have a meal in the garden?” he asked in incomprehension.