Leveling through Lust

As much as I wanted to lay on the ground and slowly recover after casting my first proper godly feat, that was not something I could do.

Not when the undead that surrounded the capital received an intense boost to their abilities as the necrotic mana continued to fill the Aether dimension of the plane. It was yet to reach a point of diffusing into the physical plane, but I wasn’t the only one that could reach the Astral plane and pull some mana.

They just lacked my ability to break down Aether into mana, which limited the effectiveness of such a move significantly. But, at a point where the Aether was still being filled with an incredible amount of necrotic mana, that was not needed.

The first thing, I had given an order to the God Forest, and a great number of treants rushed forward toward the outer line to reinforce the battle, to get rid of the advance undead force before they could get even stronger.

I would have intervened directly, but creating a ward around the capital was more important. I rapidly worked, ignoring the strain in my body as I built a barrier between the Astral plane and the physical side, one that would block the mana flow — and, as an added benefit, teleportation as well.

I was copying another trick that I had seen in the memories of the nature god, which didn’t make erecting the barrier any easier. If I used just the principles of such a concept and focused on building a barrier, it would have been much faster…

Unfortunately, it would also risk shouting my true origin to the Eternals, who were still busy pumping the plane with necrotic mana. I didn’t know just how intensely they were observing now that they were about to leave.

They wouldn’t miss a ward that was larger than a mountain.

I squeezed my teeth as I focused on building the nature ward all over the capital, leaving only the roots of the Tree of Life defenseless, letting them die temporarily. If I had the opportunity, I would have saved them, but with the whole plane suffocated by the necrotic mana, doing so would give my enemies too many chances to attack, and I doubted I could stop those even if I revealed the full range of my abilities.

I was still far from the peak of my power and injured; not to mention a full-fledged necromancer assault confident enough to deal with a god was not a trivial attack.

Especially since it was still being supported by the Eternals.

As I continued to build the wards, I couldn’t help but think whether the Eternals pulled the same trick every plane they had intervened, or it was something they were forced to do because of my sudden intervention. I hoped that it was the latter, because it would mean their current attack was forcing them to waste some valuable resources.

I knew they were strong, but imagining them treating what had just happened as a disposable resource was too hard to comprehend. The necrotic mana in the Aether dimension was still growing, and the planar border had already changed its nature.

Before the attack, it was a relatively even mixture of necrotic mana and nature mana, conflicting at the edges, but as the Aether continued to fill with necrotic mana, the balance shifted. The nature mana was demolished until it turned into a small point right at the top, a helpless small circle continuously supported by the Tree of Life … while the rest of the border turned necrotic.

I was tempted to cut the connection completely, but I could sense some thin connections between that border and Seldanna. I had already cut the roots of the tree which slowed her Apothesis significantly. I didn’t dare to do that last part.

Instead, I stretched a connection between it and the God Forest, ensuring enough supply of mana to prevent its collapse.

And, just like that, the preparations were complete… It was time to hunt some undead.

I stretched my attention along the border, and noticed that, at several spots, undead had been already reinforced. Interestingly, that reinforcement came in the form of liches and death knights using their flying mounts — bone dragons and other impressive beings — rushing toward the defensive line, which, despite the addition of the ward, already buckling down.

It was an impressive showing … but my frown was more about confusion than fear. Their approach was rather more chaotic than I expected, and actually reduced the impact of the force they could bear.

“Of course,” I murmured a moment later as the realization hit. They were not attacking … but they were racing forward. Now that they believed their success was imminent, they were more interested in stealing the most Divine Spark they could rather than making their victory perfect.

They clearly didn’t care about their losses but their individual benefit.

At a distance, I even saw a necromancer killing another, using the crystal to trap his essence. It didn’t surprise me. Even the elves were more than happy to betray their kind for power.

Necromancy wasn’t exactly an art famous for kindness and self-sacrifice.

I wasn’t complaining. Their habits worked excellently to my benefit. That meant, I had the space to pull a little trick. I cast an illusion spell, one that created a floating, wooden copy of the god, the same gold and white coloration of the Tree of Life — another trick from the memories — and sent it toward the most intense spot of the battle.

The speed of it was impressive, and the constant nature of mana it radiated was enough to entice the elves to fight harder. The undead looked hesitant as they pulled back, but rather than fully retreating, they sent hordes and hordes of undead toward it, while the strongest liches connected to it.

Yet, the moment some necrotic energy landed on the surface, a crack of diseased energy and rotten wood appeared. The treant let out a display of pain before it let out a huge flood of nature energy, recovering from the damage and empowering the nearby elves at the same time.

During that display, a group of leaves disappeared permanently, like the treant had made some permanent sacrifice for that burst.

The undead was too smart to miss that sign of weakness, and they rushed forward, unaware that they were attacking an empty puppet connected to God Forest, just a conduit for all the mana I had stored from the earlier attack.

That addition ensured that the most important defensive point wouldn’t collapse. Another illusion spell, and I had turned into an ordinary elven warrior, and rushed toward the weakest area… Once I arrived there, I cast another spell, and turned into a mere skeleton warrior, radiating necrotic energy.

The chaos of the battlefield was perfect as I rushed among the horde of zombies, not many people paying attention to the movement of the undead. Soon, I reached the first necromancer, who was yet to take his step into the lichdom. A swing of my sword was enough to destroy him as I pressed a crystal into his corpse.

Of course, both the swing and the crystal were unnecessary. Just a small invasion of mana was all I needed to steal his divine spark, and purify rapidly.

{+34 Necrotic Spark, Chosen}

“Nice,” I murmured as I measured the amount of strength he granted to me, even though it had come with a sense of disgust. Holding Necrotic Spark inside my soul, I could already feel a sense of corruption radiating, showing just how unnatural its existence was.

Not something I wished to do, but the circumstances forced me to do so. The sight of a poor necromancer, fighting with his peers behind the battle lines was much less attention-grabbing.

Especially when I could already see dozens of duels going on.

With my body injured, I wasn’t in a position to just fight against the undead, and I doubted they would be still fighting against each other if I managed to assassinate them from a distance. It might force them to gather their forces together and deliver a coordinated assault — which was not something I could handle in my wounded state.

Worse, any hint of success might trigger the Eternals to act even more overtly. Ideally, I didn’t want to see what else they had in store, ever, but if I was going to see it, I preferred to delay it until I could completely recover.

First, I cast a spell on myself, changing my disguise from a skeleton knight, then, gathered some necrotic mana from my environment, and raised a bunch of skeletons that were under my direct command. Giving orders to corpses didn’t feel nice, but I ignored the disgust and ordered them to spread around...

I had a lot of undead to hunt.

{Strength: 16 Charisma: 22

Precision: 16 Perception: 16

Agility: 16 Manipulation: 22

Speed: 16 Intelligence: 16

Endurance: 24 Wisdom: 16}

{Purified Divine Spark: 188}

{Pseudo-HP: 5800 Mana: 15000}

{ADDITIONAL SPARKS

Light - Chosen 7.4

Necrotic - Chosen 34

Nature - Chosen 10}

{MINIONS

Guardian God Forest - 18183}

Elven Priestess - XXXX}

[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]