Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 928 The Hard Bargain (1)

A divine will.

.cοm Well, as tempting as the word \'divine\' was, there were many dangers involved with dealing with such a thing.

This was not as simple of a matter as conversing with someone who reached DIVINITY. Skullius had speculated before that the thing behind the Luminants, the thing behind the skill [Son of Luserus] – a skill tied to his race, to the Luminant side of him – which he had been trying to activate, was actually a Deity.

Would this be too dangerous?

Skullius laughed.

"It\'ll be fine."

He knew that for a fact.

As for how he knew, well...

While giving his consent promptly to the notification swimming in his dark vision, Skullius touched the wing-infested jade wall to the massive, towering shrine and in an instant, a flood of radiant light blew away the boundless void of his blind sight, making him squint for the first time in months.

"Hooo..."

Skullius felt himself get surrounded by a vast, inexplicably domineering presence.

In fact, rather than a presence, it felt like a world was constructing itself around him rapidly, starting with a pool of unfathomably dense energy much more potent than anything he had come into contact with so far; then the grating noise of dry lands forming; the rigid rising of great mountains; the loud splashes of waters from broad seas; and the gusty echoes of windy skies.

Well, Skullius could only guess that this was what was happening. The activity around him was too phenomenal in scope for him to discern it all at an accurate micro scale.

The gist of the matter was, something unbelievably powerful was trapping him in its vast expanse.

Yet, as all this happened, Skullius could tell that he was also still standing before the shrine with little no chances around him, and all this was happening some space else. In another, perhaps, hypothetical reality where he also existed.

As ridiculous as that sounded, it was no doubt possible for a Deity, a being that could create a world.

And thus...

"Is this your way of making an impression? It\'s too long-winded and wasteful. Show yourself already," Skullius spoke to the wide, broad world around him that still cluttered and boomed, its features rippling, dismantling and building.

The sounds turned dull, but didn\'t cease.

It became muffled background noise instead.

There was a stretch of silence which lasted for a little more than half a minute, then the voice that Skullius expected emerged, as boisterous and powerful as he expected.

<You boast part of the charm of my creations, but you lack all of the reverence, daring one.>

The voice skewed the definition of everything Skullius could sense around him in this obscure world, and he could feel even his body touching the shrine twitch, and contorted at the voice\'s immense strength!

What power!

It was incredible!

Yet, a relatively unbothered look persisted on the Hybrid Luman\'s face.

"That\'s quite the attitude coming from someone who was desperately calling for me just now," he said tauntingly.

There was a pause.

Then a grinding force pummelled Skullius from above, forcing him to kneel. It felt like the weight of the world had just been hypothetically planted onto his shoulders, giving him the hefty task of carrying a staggering amount of virtual mass!

His body in this plane was fine... but that which was near the shrine buckled, its bones breaking, blood flooding out in multiple springs opened up from his flesh; where his bones protruded like javelins grotesquely.

<I beseech you. Say that to me again.>

The voice came again with a mocking and testy tone.

However, even as Skullius knelt, buckling, he grinned, and even laughed.

"I\'ll say it again! You have quite the attitude for someone who is so desperate for what I have!" he cried out and then, with his fingers brimming with a massive torrent of Null Life Essence – all he had at the moment – Skullius plunged his hand into his gut and broke – with immense difficulty – something that had been placed there a month ago by another bearer of an Existential Parallel!

CRACK!

At once, the harsh pressure thundering upon Skullius ceased as though it had never existed in the first place, and right after, a bluish flame sprang forth for the Hybrid Luman\'s belly and gathered by his side as he stood up.

The great flame turned ferocious and then took on a slender, humanoid shape. Well, rather than slender, it was very thin, as though it was struggling to keep itself alive.

Skullius turned to the flame with a sigh, and chortled.

"I didn\'t think you\'d take so long to free me..." a voice from the flame. "It\'s only now when you need me that you break that seal?"

Skullius shrugged.

"Well, it\'s all about convenience. Don\'t worry, it won\'t happen again anyway. I won\'t be needing you much longer, Serenity," he said before turning ahead, leaving the humanoid flame visibly pondering what he had just said.

"Now, can we have a civilised discussion?"

There was no response from the boundless world for a while. All the arrogance had faded ever since Serenity showed up.

<I see. You are one of them.>

"Indeed," Skullius said.

The focus of the great presence abound could be felt turning to Serenity whose flame body blinked in and out of existence.

<Unfathomable. To think one of my own is possessed by one of you. What are the odds?>

There was a hint of irritation in the voice of the divine will.

Serenity, her expression indecipherable, spoke.

"You are quite dull for a Deity. I sense great vulnerability from you," she commented before turning a flaming head to Skullius. "Yet, I suppose it\'s better not to get involved in this one."

The great will remained silent once again. It didn\'t seem bothered by Serenity\'s demeaning remark.

Skullius scoffed at it.

"I was promised blessings and similar sorts of delight that my body has yet to taste," he said. "Then again, you didn\'t know I wasn\'t a full Luminant before you reached out with that promise, right?"

There was no reply.

Skullius was unbothered. He cackled, in fact.

"You\'re the Deity responsible for creating the Luminants, right? I wager there\'s a reason why you were so desperate to come into contact with another one of your creations in Aigas," he grinned.

His words sounded more certain than curious.

"There aren\'t anymore of them on that side, are there?"

There was no reply.

Skullius imagined he was right on this one.

That yearning which flooded twofold, detected by his senses, by his very blood, and by the guidance field was too authentic.

Deities were powerful enough to create worlds, living organisms and power structures, as Skullius had seen in Aigas, but Aigas as an example was probably not that common among those who transcended Divinity.

Three Deities making a world likely went against the very nature of most Deities.

Given that knowledge, what if a world was made by one Deity.

It wouldn\'t be as intricate as Aigas.

It wouldn\'t be a... RICH WORLD, as Aurolio said, would it?

It wouldn\'t be as vast as Aigas, would it?

It wouldn\'t have diverse species, millions in number of each kind, would it?

And what if a great number of these already limited creations were suddenly stolen by a madman who attained Divinity one day, whisked away to another world; another set of them used for heinous tasks; a staggering few then left behind in a world dying after an intense battle?

How long would that world last?

Skullius relished in the silence and he was elated when the voice of the divine will finally came.

<I sense a great similarity in your depths to that fiend who ravaged my creation. The man who killed and stole my work>.

Skullius laughed coldly.

"It\'s good that you remember him. You\'re about to reward that same man\'s effort. After all, this body you see, is the last that remains of your precious Luminants."