The Mage Emperor

Resolving enmity

--- Daniel Key's pov ---

“My Lord, I think that we should leave Light city and start over somewhere else!” Helen said as she put her hand on Thanatos's. She was Hera's incarnation, but after falling prey to the schemes of this bastard, she also fell low. She even had to attend to all of Thanatos's needs, lowering her position to that of a concubine.

“Shut up, Bitch! Two weeks have passed and you useless fools still couldn't find them! How dare you even stand in front of me?” he slapped her across the face and then glared at us.

“Daniel, I gave you a moratorium last week and you said that you'll find Seth, didn't you? And yet… I can't see him anywhere!” he yelled at me as he stood up from his throne.

“B-but Master, you do realise that you're asking something impossible, right? He's much stronger than any of us so I have no way to find him, and even in if I did, he'd just kill me!” I raised my hands in my defense, seeing that he was about to attack me.

“Who cares about your life?! Just find him even if you die!” he shouted and then threw a fireball towards my head. Knowing that it'd anger him even more if I dodged it, I used a bit of magic to redirect it towards my chest. The moment it hit my chest, it exploded like a goddamn bomb and blew me against the wall. Although the explosion split open my chest, I was still a Grandmaster so I quickly healed it with some magic.

Gulping down a mouthful of blood, I stood up from the ground and dusted off my torn clothes.

Great, now I can go and buy new clothes again, though if this keeps going, I won't have to. Well, if things came down to that, I'd rather try to take him down with me than to die a meaningless death.

“Neil, it's your turn. Did you find anything?” he continued with Ne Zha's incarnation. Unfortunately, his results were the same as mine so he received the same kind of treatment. Soon he went through every Grandmaster and then sat back on his throne.

“I can't believe it! He was there! In my grasp! So why can't we find him?” he continued fuming with anger.

How could you find someone as powerful as him in the goddamn world when he's hiding? Fucking moron… but you're also afraid to leave the city because you know that he could kill you anytime if you were alone. If only Seth could kill him, I'd use that moment to escape and live a good life somewhere else. Hell, maybe I could start a city like this one, but I'd be the lord there!

Heh, my daughter did well in alerting Seth ahead of time. Although she doesn't know that I know, I could still use her if things were to go south.

“Haah- alright, I feel better now. Let's think this through with a clear head and show me the places where Seth appeared. He keeps killing my servants and soon only the seven of us will be left. I'd like to keep as many of you alive as possible,” he sighed and then walked to the middle of the room where a map of the city was spread out on a table below .

“He appeared here, here, and here during the last two days, and all of these were in the southern area of the city,” he pointed at the red dots on the map. It happened a week ago that Seth started killing Thanatos's servants, which meant that there were less and less people capable of using WORD magic.

I had to admit, I had some trouble sleeping these past few days, but I was quite sure that I was at the end of his list. My only hope was that he'd try to kill Thanatos before me because if he succeeded, the curse would be lifted and I could leave.

Once Thanatos finished the meeting, I went back home and decided to meditate in my private space as usual. I knew I was supposed to look for Seth, but I didn't want to meet that monster either. It was impossible for me to find him anyway, so I was better off practising and meditating.

“Father, what was it like?” Valerie stopped me in front of my room. Before Seth disappeared, Thanatos applied his seal on him, so at first, we thought that his presence disappeared because he died. He had no way to know about its effects since not even Valerie knew about them. Although we believed that Seth died since his presence disappeared instantly, we weren’t sure of his death, so we tried to find him but with no results.

One of the weaker servants said that he came upon some kind of formation and that some shadow disappeared when he broke it, but we weren’t sure if any of that was true. It really didn’t help that a bit later others started reporting similar scenes. Any sane person would think that they were just imagining things because of their fear, even I saw those kinds of images while I was looking for him… Nobody wanted to meet him one on one.

We realised that something was wrong only when Thanatos sensed two other seals disappearing about half an hour later, and those belonged to the people Seth captured, Dixon and Damon. It seemed quite stupid to think that Seth would risk his life to save two strangers, so we assumed that they died, but their bodies weren’t found either. Since Thanatos was afraid of Seth, he didn’t let us rest and made us search the whole jungle to find any traces of him, but with no success.

I also started believing that Thanatos’s curse killed him, but we all realised that we were wrong one week ago when someone started killing our people. My speculations were proven true three days ago when one of our high-recording-speed surveillance cameras caught a glimpse of him, but we weren’t able to find him in the city ever since. He was killing our people one after the other, so I knew our destruction was inevitable, but I didn’t care about Light city. In fact, I was glad to see that Thanatos's life was getting in danger, I was just hoping that I’d get the chance to run away.

“What was it like? Don’t be an idiot, it was terrible as always,” I grumbled, remembering how Thanatos beat me up once again. Unlike the rest of these idiots, I wasn’t blackmailed into joining Light city. In the beginning, a few of us worked together to manage the city and divided the ‘souls’ equally. Everyone gained the same amount of power from the people that killed each other.

Things went wrong only when some goddamn bitch found out about our secret and almost killed a few of us. We were much weaker back then so she managed to get away, but thanks to our quick progression speed, she never dared coming back. Her name was Skadi, some kind of god of frost mountains or what the hell. I remembered her name because everything went wrong because of that bitch.

The problem was that Thanatos didn’t take part in that battle and when we returned, he killed the most powerful ones of my companions and threatened the rest of us with our lives. Since I knew I’d die if I tried to fight him back, I took his goddamn oath and had been serving him ever since. I really couldn’t wait for Seth to do the dirty work and kill that bastard. And while he was enjoying his sweet revenge, I’d get to leave silently and go somewhere far away, never to see him again. If I got away, there was no way he’d find me on this huge planet.

“I’m not an idiot! Why can’t you talk to me nicely? Am I not your daughter?” Valerie started whining like some goddamn bitch. I quickly fixed the problem with a slap across the face and then made my way towards my room.

“Don’t question me, ever, and shut up,” I said as I passed her. Taking a quick glance at her, I saw her staring at me with teary eyes in silence. Nodding my head, I said, “Good, you should stay quiet. You should be happy that I didn’t throw you aside like I did your mother, though we could fix that if you want to continue whining.”

“N-No,” she shook her head and then quickly went back to her room. Shrugging my shoulders, I entered my private space, but the moment I did, I sensed something strange.

“That was really nice of you, and here I thought that the Grandmasters were just victims as well. I guess I was wrong,” a male voice resounded in my ears, a voice I knew.

“You! Why are you here?” I shouted as I turned around, but the only thing I saw behind me was a black hole.

Where did my door go?

“Do you want to run? I’m sorry to tell you this but while you were having your meeting, I took over your space and set up a few… traps,” he said. Since the voice was coming from behind me once again, I turned around, but this time he was standing there, facing me.

“Seth… what a surprising meeting,” I forced a smile on my face.

“Thanatos! Seth is here! Come with the others!” I tried to use my soul force, but for some reason, it couldn’t leave the room.

“As I said, I’ve set up a few traps, so you can’t call help unless you kill me,” he smiled at me.

Gritting my teeth, I took a step back and lowered my head to show him that I understood my position. When I tried to send a message to Thanatos, my soul force came in contact with his soul and if my soul was like a tree, then his soul was like a mountain. I had no chance against him, that was clear to me instantly.

“Are you not going to fight?” he asked as he walked closer and stopped in front of me, not even an arm’s reach away.

“I know that it’d be pointless, so tell me what you want from me,” I replied, but the moment I finished talking, a crushing pressure fell on my shoulders and forced me on my knees.

“What if I want your life?”

I felt my dreams of fleeing being crushed, but I wouldn’t give up on my life. Smashing my head into the ground, I grovelled on the ground and shouted, “I’m willing to serve you!”

“My, how can you fear your life this much? Do you even know the word ‘pride’?” he squatted down and put his hand on the back of my head.

“Pride is but a tool, I care not for such things if I can stay alive,” I replied. There’ll be a day when I can make others kneel, that’ll be the day when I regain my pride, though I guess I shouldn’t say that aloud.

When I finished talking, I could feel his fingers running through my hair and clutching it into a bun. He raised my head to eye-level and then smiled at me as he said, “I guess you’re the type that feels self-satisfied and great when you can rule over the weak, right? It’d surely make me feel great if I were to make you serve me and make your life worse than a dog’s, but then I wouldn’t be any different than you.”

“Oh, right, guess what! I plan to question the other grandmasters to see if any of them are actually ‘good’ people, in a way, and were blackmailed into all this. If they are, I may give them a chance and turn them into my servants. Of course, they’ll have to do good as my servants and save people from the likes of you. I also thought about giving you a chance, but after hearing and sensing what you did to your daughter, I changed my mind.”

“You won’t get to live any longer.”

“Fuck y-” I shouted as I reached towards his face, but somehow I lost my sense of direction and caught nothing.

--- Seth’s POV ---

“Well, it’d be hard to hit me when you have no head, right?” I muttered as I looked at Daniel’s headless corpse. I also crushed his soul so he had no way to regenerate. It was instant death.

A long, silver-haired woman stepped out from behind a tree and asked, “Who’s next?” Her name was Skadi, the goddess who ruled over Helvaria and the person that got in a fight with the exact same people who we were going to kill. As expected of a god incarnation, she also had a good figure and was the kind of beauty that made men’s head turn, but most importantly, she was strong.

I found out a lot of things about Light city after I visited her and I also came to understand why her people loved and respected her so much. Well, her ice coloured eyes looked quite intimidating, but after spending a few days in her company, I realised she was still a nice person. Lien also took a liking to her since they had a few similarities in personality.

“Hmm, I’m not sure. Everyone returned to their home so we could continue with anyone, though I think that we should catch Thanatos first. I don’t want to alert them and risk them running away,” I replied.

“Then it’s definitely Thanatos’s turn,” Skadi also nodded.

“Hey, honey, how’re you doing?” I asked Lien through Link.

“I’m in the middle of setting up the formations on the upper levels. Are you done with Daniel?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ve killed him just now and we’re wondering about who should be the next,” I replied.

“You should save Valerie first. As much as I don’t like her, she was still a victim, in a way,” she said.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. That’s why I brought Dixon with me,” I said.

“Alright then. I think that you should continue with Thanatos and then Mesperyian. She’s on the sure-to-be-killed list anyway… it’d be for the best if you left the questionable ones last. Obviously, Thanatos will notice that Daniel’s presence disappeared, so you better hurry up before he runs away,” she replied.

“Aye! That’s what I thought as well and we’re already on the way,” I chuckled.

“Were you testing me?”

“Maybe~” I mused and then cut the connection. The day I finished building Leviathan, we decided that we shouldn’t rush to meet Skadi and spent another week doing nothing in particular. Well, the nights were long… but during daytime Lien spent most of her time with her mother and I also stuck around to get closer to her. My mother was nagging me to stay with them anyway.

After one week was up, I made up my mind and visited Skadi with Lien by my side. Although I didn’t know what kind of person she was, I was quite sure that I could have protected Lien if things went wrong. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. She was weaker than me even at that time, and I’ve kind of left her in the dust since then, but she was still a very powerful incarnation.

Thinking back to that day, I was really surprised when she told me that she sensed when I entered her territory, and I was even more surprised when I found out about her past. At first, I didn’t want to ask for her help, but Lien kept talking about an alliance until even Skadi took it seriously. Seeing that she was seriously considering helping me out, I also took it more seriously and negotiated with her. It was our first meeting, and yet we formed an alliance to get rid of Thanatos and the likes. It was a lucky find.

The next day we moved out and started ambushing Thanatos’s servants, though we also left a few of them alive. There were people who were blackmailed and forced into serving him, so I gave those people another chance to atone for their sins. Naturally, there were people that had to be killed by all means if I wanted to free the people of Light city. Well, there was also Mesperyian who I didn’t know, but I was sure that she wasn’t a nice person if she loved torturing others. She probably had a twisted mind if she inherited the knowledge of a god like that.

“And how do you want to attack him? Do we just charge in and start hitting him with a stick or…?” Skadi asked.

Hearing her question, I stopped reminiscing about the last two weeks and started laughing, “Hahaha, no, no, we don’t need sticks. I think that we can go frontally, but you know what you have to do when we appear,” I said with a frown.

“Yes, yes, I know,” she waved her hand. She was responsible for keeping our targets caged while I dealt with them. Since both of us could focus on doing one thing, we had a huge advantage in battles.

Lien was also progressing quicker than expected, and if she kept up her speed, she’d reach a level where she could help me even against people like the Grandmasters. On the other hand, I would worry much less about her if I knew that she could at least run away. During the last two weeks she also learned how to teleport and tried using WORD magic for the first time in her life. Well, the end result was that she fainted from mana consumption, but a big juicy kiss from me and she was back on her feet once again.

With the help of a bit of WORD magic, I moved us straight into the building where Thanatos resided. I found myself standing in the middle of a hall with a long, red carpet on the ground. I could hear footsteps nearing the corner which was only a few meters in front of us, so I quickly snuck up to it and waited for my victims to arrive.

“Geh, I swear Master is going crazy because of the death cases,” one of them said in a low voice.

“It’s all because of-” the guy walking next to him was about to answer, but I quickly moved behind them and knocked them out with my soul force. After tying them up and sealing their magic, I teleported them out of the building and then continued on the way to Thanatos’s room.

“This place looks like some kind of palace with all these tall and empty corridors, though this emptiness also makes it feel ‘majestic’,” I muttered.

“It is a palace,” Skadi started laughing.

“How can anyone live in a place like this?” I couldn’t help but shake my head.

Placing her hands on her hips, she tilted her head to the side and asked, “Did you forget that I’m also living in a palace?”

“No,” I shook my head. “But you also have a much comfier private quarter, which is more like a small house, and I have a feeling that you aren’t spending your days strolling the corr-”

“No, I don’t, but I’m sure there is a quarter like that in this palace as well. Why don’t you just take it as a symbol of status and power? You’ve clearly never been a leader, have you?” she interrupted me.

“No, I haven’t,” I shrugged my shoulders.

“That’s why you don’t understand. It’s like a psychological warfare. The moment your servants or visitors enter your palace, they’ll start feeling small and feeble, which will put you in an advantage in any conversation,” she said.

Seeing me looking at her skeptically, she quickly added, “I know that it didn’t really work on you, but you seem to be the type who talks with his fist instead, and I can totally understand why with your power. But whatever you think, it does affect common people.”

“I beg your pardon, I’m not one to jump the gun instantly and I often try to talk it out at first or leave the person alone,” I defended myself.

Raising her brows, she also looked at me skeptically and then shrugged her shoulders, “If you say so.”

“You don’t seem to believe me,” I couldn’t help but frown.

“Hmm, I don’t know. You just don’t seem to be a man of words, but I’m not saying that I don’t believe you. Also, stop looking at me with that scary face. I wonder what Lien will do to you if I tell on you,” she said.

“What about!? I wasn’t even making a scary face… it’s not like I know how to do that anyway.”

“Hahaha, I was just kidding. I just wanted to see your reaction. You should have seen the face you made when I brought her up,” she started laughing.

“Hey, lower your voice or we’ll be heard. Also, what’s so surprising about it? You know that she’s important to me,” I shook my head.

“I know,” she smiled at me. “It must be nice, in the past I also had…” she stopped talking and averted her eyes. Seeing that she didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t delve into her past and stopped talking.

“My, and here I thought that you’d ask me about it,” she said after a few seconds passed in silence.

“I didn’t want to be rude,” I replied.

“Ah, so you do have manners, I’m surprised!” she feigned surprise.

“Very funny, how old are you? Ten?” I remarked, glancing at her from the corner of my eye.

“There we go with bad manners, you shouldn’t ask a woman about her age,” she waved her finger disapprovingly.

“And why the fuck is that?” I rolled my eyes.

Shaking her head, she sighed loudly and said, “It must be hard for Lien, though you seemed to be much more considerate of her.”

“Of course, she’s my wife, but she wouldn’t say something like this if a guy asked her age,” I said.

Placing her hand on her chin, she started pondering and then said, “Hmm, I think I could imagine her simply answering. Anyway, what do you think? How old am I?”

“Just based on your looks I’d say that you’re in your early twenties, but I’m pretty sure that you’re over thirty, so… why are you shaking your head while smiling?” I asked.

“Fufu, it seems like my magic worked well over all these years. The truth is that I’m a hundred and twenty-eight years old. Honestly, how the hell could I become the ‘goddess’ of a whole country in just thirty some years?” she shook her head.

Raising my hands, I said, “Okay, you beat me.”

“Haha, I guess it was worth replicating telomeres in my DNA for all these years, though I also rebuilt my organs five times during my life,” she laughed.

“Five times?” I raised my brows.

“Well, although my DNA won’t get messed up because of all the telomeres and I also look young, I believed it was better to rebuild my organs from time to time. You wouldn’t believe how much it helped me in my life, I always feel fresh and energetic!” she said.

“That sounds quite good. Maybe I should do the same.”

Scratching her face, she averted her eyes and started muttering, “It’s a good thing, it’s just that my desires are also refreshed every time and it takes more than ten years for it to stop. I mean, I keep getting excited by every hot guy I see like some goddamn kid in puberty.”

“Hah? Are you sure you should be saying stuff like that?” I asked with a frown.

“Hahaha, why? Would you attack me and push me down?” she asked playfully.

“Not a chance,” I waved my hand. The hell is she talking about? Why would she talk about being horny in front of a guy? Not to mention that it’s only the two of us, even if we’re about to attack Thanatos. Why does it feel like as if I was being tested?

Glancing at her, I noticed her staring at me with a grin on her face, making me realise that she was teasing me. I surely felt like some little boy to her, so I decided to ignore her for the time being. It was better to focus on my opponent anyway, even if he had no chance against me at this point.

“Could you stop fooling around? I’ll count on you setting up a barrier to cut off his escape routes, alright?” I asked, stopping in front of Thanatos’s door. On the other side of the door I could sense a spacious room with a powerful presence inside.

“Fine, fine,” she waved her hand. The truth was that she didn’t even know Thanatos, only the rest of the grandmasters and those who were ambushed by Thanatos. She thought she’d get revenge on those people, but ever since she found out that they were dead, she seemed to have lost her enthusiasm. Shaking my head, I used dark magic to pass through the door and then took shape right in front of Thanatos.

“Why, hello there,” I waved my hand, seeing him looking at me with wide opened eyes.

“Wha- What the hell are you doing here? How did you get here without anyone noticing you?!” he jumped up from his throne and readied himself for battle. “This… I can’t even see through you anymore! What sort of bullshit is this?!” he shouted at me.

I could sense that he was trying to teleport away, but thanks to Skadi’s barrier, mana was restricted to stay inside the room. You could teleport only to places where mana flowed so the furthest he could teleport was the other side of the room, and that clearly wouldn’t save him.

“It’s the power of my love!” I shouted as I spread my arms. “Well, jokes aside, you messed with the wrong person and since you also failed to kill me, you’re going to die. I can’t say that you’re going to regret it if you die, can I?” I raised my brows.

“Tsk, as if I would go down that easily!” he jumped back and was about to start using WORD magic, but I was already next to him and caught his wrist.

“Hey, hey, not so fast. We haven’t even warmed up and you’re already trying to cast WORD magic. Are you really that excited by the idea of death?” I asked as I twisted his wrist and then smashed him straight into the ground.

“This is not even a battle, it feels like an adult beating a kid, but I guess I’m a bad adult in this case because I’m enjoying it,” I sighed loudly and sat down on his back before he could get up.

“By the way, what did you say last time we met? You said that I was weak and that you were strong, right? I wonder where all your strength went after all that talk,” I shook my head. Of course, he had no way to attack me since I started bombarding his soul with my soul force and he was entirely focused on dealing with them. Last time he had about a half of my power, but this time he had one third of my strength.

“Guh- let go of me,” he grit his teeth and then quickly shut his eyes once again to focus on dealing with my soul force. I molded my soul force into the shape of spades and shovels and kept picking away from his soul. Hurting him physically was impossible at this level of strength, but he, the god of death, feared death more than anyone else.

Grabbing his hair, I couldn’t help but remember how he called Lien a bitch multiple times, so I felt the need to smash his face into the ground. Seeing a small pool of blood slowly forming under his head, I realised I may have used a bit more force than intended. When I raised his head I was glad to see his face being crushed. Right when I was pondering about finishing him, I could hear a door opening in front of me, so I looked up only to see a blonde haired woman. There was another door behind the throne.

“Mesp- help…” Thanatos uttered two words, but the woman just kept standing there, staring at me warily. After a few seconds of silent staring, she reached behind her back and grabbed the handle of the door. Slowly inching backwards, she raised her left hand and said, “I don’t want to cause trouble, okay? I- I’m just going to leave.”

“HELP” Thanatos shouted this time, making her body freeze in place.

“Kuh- no! I’ll be killed as well! Die alone you fucker!” she yelled at him, but she still raised her hand and started writing a word in the air.

“So futile,” I shook my head when she was about to start the last letter of the ‘death’ word. For a moment I stopped attacking Thanatos’s soul and knocked out Mesperyian instead. Without making any noise, she simply fell to the floor and lost her consciousness. Thanatos was still much stronger than the grandmasters, which made sense considering that he was taking most of the ‘credit’ for all the souls in Light city.

Even that split of a second was enough for Thanatos to do something about his position, but the furthest he got was that he created a half-done black hole in front of my face. Waving my hand, I quickly disposed of it and then continued my one-sided crusade. About two minutes later he ran out of soul force and fell victim to his own kind of magic.

Although he had some kind of oath to control others, I didn’t know how to do something like that so I came up with something else during the last two weeks. I had to carve a few runes into his soul and it was quite consuming, but it was better than killing him. The reason was also simple. If I killed him, his commandment would be freed and maybe another sick fuck like him would reincarnate as Thanatos sooner or later.

That was why I wanted to seal their magic and then take them to Leviathan so that they’d never get to see the daylight again. Was it evil? Maybe. Did I care? I didn’t give a fuck. They’ve surely done much worse things to others, so sitting in a cell was really ‘light’ on them. Since that day, I’ve heard news of Mesperyian’s methods from Skadi, and she told me that she even had an automatized system for torturing people.

I’d have fell to their level if I put them in cells in those automatised systems, and I wasn’t a fan of torturing anyway, so I felt that this much was enough. Solitude would hurt them way more in the future anyway. After carving a few more runes into his soul, I moved over to Mesperyian and did the same to her. Since they were both unconscious, I put their bodies next to each other and then called for Skadi.

“Come in!”

Slightly opening the door, she peeked in and then appeared next to me. “My, his face is so ugly,” she covered her mouth.

“I don’t think anyone would be nice after their facial bones were crushed… I’m kind of surprised that his brain wasn’t damaged. I thought I’d have to heal him,” I said.

“And what now? Do you even need me at this point?” she asked, squatting down in front of me.

Without looking anywhere else, I gazed straight into her eyes and said, “You’re wearing a short skirt, you know? It’s almost winter, but you came wearing a short skirt saying that this level of cold was like summer to you. Now you go and squat down right in front of me, almost showing me everything. What are you trying to achieve?”

Leaning close to my ear, she started whispering, “Are you interested? I could show you what’s under, and believe me, that place is really hot.” Seeing that I kept sitting on Thanatos’s back, not saying anything, she added, “Lien isn’t here either, she wouldn’t find out. You see, it’s been so long since I’ve been with a man and seeing your progression speed, you’re definitely some kind of god of sex or stuff like that.”

“In the past your kind was controlled by other gods and were kept in check but now… you can evolve all you want. The more the merrier, and the idea of doing it with a god of sex just screws with my mind. I wonder what skills you have after practising so much with your wife. Do you really want to get stuck with having only one woman? Imagine having a whole harem.”

Slowly leaning back, she looked into my eyes and then quickly jumped back, most likely realising that I was in a ‘bad mood’. “Hey, hey, why are you making that dark face? I was just kidding, okay?”

“Listen, I-” before I could say anything else, she used wind magic to mute me and said, “This was just a prank, okay? I’m sorry for doing this, but I had a small chat with Lien yesterday.”

“Hah? When?” I shook my head, cancelling her magic.

“Hmm, she visited me in the afternoon and said that you were training. Anyway, we had some fun together and somehow we ended up talking about you two. I told her that it’d be fun to test you, but she said no, saying that it’d be pointless. I kept nagging her until she just ignored what I said.”

“How far would you have gone?” I asked with a frown.

“If I have to be honest, I’ll admit that I’m really curious about your… skills, and you wouldn’t deserve such a cute girl as Lien if you cheated on her anyway, so-”

Unable to listen to her any long, I cut into her words and asked, “Were you really prepared to go that far? Aren’t you just being a b- never mind,” I bit off the last word.

“Oh, damn, you’re really something else. To call a woman a bitch because she wouldn’t mind doing it with a man she took a liking to. I bet a guy wouldn’t be called that the other way around. What do you call this? Double standards?” she shook her head.

“You’re wrong. I called you a bitch because you would have done it even if Lien was your ‘friend’, as you said, and-” Seeing that the more I said the more she smile, I realised I was being led around by the nose once again, so I shut up.

“Hahaha, I’m sorry about it, but I just can’t stop fooling you when you keep responding like that. I was obviously joking, and the most you would have got from me would have been a kiss,” she shook her head helplessly.

“It’s very fucking funny…”

“It is! I’ve noticed that you’re quite perceptive of people and liars, but you’re a bit too young compared to me. It seems like I’m the first person in your life who isn’t a bad liar and knows what she’s doing, so it makes sense that you’re never sure when I’m lying and when I’m not. As compensation and a show of my gratitude for dealing with these people and entertaining me, I’ll gladly help you out the next time you need help. Are we okay like that?”

“Fine…” I grumbled.

“Aww, you started pouting. If only I had a phone, I’d definitely take a photo of you now and show it to Lien. She’d love the face you’re making.”

“Do you mean that she’d love to laugh at it?” I rolled my eyes.

“Quite so~ Anyway, do you need my help with anything else?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Not even for the love of God. Please go back to your frosty land and let me have a peace of mind,” I waved my hand.

“Haha, you’re so gullible. It really makes me want to-”

“Skadi. One more thing,” I interrupted her, seeing that she wanted to continue fooling around.

“What is it?” she asked with a frown, taking me seriously this time.

“I hope that you can stay quiet about my commandment,” I said.

“I’m certainly not going to tell my guesses to anyone, but anyone with a bit of knowledge about the past would realise it if they spent some time with you. There are very few incarnations that can progress as quickly as you, and most of them have similar commandments… The thing is, most of them are also hiding or are locked up,” she said in a low voice.

“Have you met anyone else?” I couldn’t help but ask. Why would she know how quickly people progressed who had similar commandments? She definitely knew something, but even after a few seconds passed in silence, she didn’t say anything.

“I did”, she finally uttered two words, and then teleported back to her land. Since I got in control of Thanatos, I woke him up and then commanded him to call the grandmasters to come over. The grandmasters couldn’t refuse his commands because of their oath, and Thanatos couldn’t refuse my commands because of my ‘soul curse’. I believed I should call it a curse because it definitely wasn’t a normal type of magic.

After interrogating all of them and finding why were they serving Thanatos, I found out that except for one person, the rest was also blackmailed into serving him. I left those grandmasters alive and killed the one who was a leader of Light city in the past, he just got betrayed like Daniel. I didn’t feel the need to lock up every ‘bad’ god incarnation since it wasn’t their power that made them evil. The likes of Mesperyian and Thanatos were a different matter, of course.

I didn’t become an emotionless murderer, but I’ve sort of got used to the fact that some people just had to be killed. Remembering that those who knew how to use WORD magic were all under Thanatos’s control, I made them come over to the place as well and then judged them one by one based on their reasons. As it turned out, weaker people like them were all just blackmailed into serving him, so I didn’t have to dirty my hands by killing them. Almost all of them also had families…

Once I finished dealing with them, I commanded a few of the grandmasters to discreetly deal with the two cities. It would have been terrible if people found out the entire truth because it’d have led to an endless amount of hate and remorse on both sides. It was better to separate them and make them meet only through some other method. The people of Dark city were another matter since many of them found out the truth long ago and even the rest knew that something was off with Thanatos’s stupid tale.

It probably didn’t help that the people he took in from outside kept spreading the word over the years. When the grandmasters announced that they would be freed within the next few days, many people came to the underground palace, wishing to see the person who saved them. Considering my future plans, I believed it was best to earn their reverence and respect so I showed my face and made a short speech as well.

While some of the grandmasters told one or two things to the people of Lighty city as well, I strolled around in Dark city and explored its tunnels. The truth was that the whole city was like a rathole. There were no roads or actual houses and the only light they saw was the fire of the torches on the walls. It made the whole cave system look like some kind of dungeon, which really made me wonder how could people live in a place like this. It was obviously because they had no other choice, but still…

The ‘houses’ were nothing but holes cut into the walls of the cave system, each having only three rooms inside. A bathroom, a kitchen, and a bedroom. I also checked out the ‘luxury’ houses they could get if they earned more points, but those were still just caves. It must have been hard for the people living in Dark city.

There was also the problem that those who had lots of points in Dark city definitely weren’t the best people. Regardless, it was impossible for me to go around and ask everyone why they had so many points and killing all of them would have put me on the same level as them. The people of Light city were the same in that aspect, the only difference was that they didn’t know that they weren’t fighting against evil people. That being the case, I decided to leave it at that since that seemed to be the most logical. Both sides fought for their lives, I had no reason to fancy either of them.

Although I went back for short periods of times to Leviathan, I spent about a week in Light city and Dark city to sort out everything and reorganise both cities. When everything was dealt with, I entrusted Helen with managing the city for the time being and went back to Leviathan.

--- Lien’s POV (the day Seth left to get rid of Thanatos) ---

I was in the middle of training a defensive spell when I heard a familiar voice in my head. “I'm back! Do you want to come over?” The voice belonged to none other than Skadi, and she seemed to be in a very good mood.

I stopped training and after trailing her soul force all the way back to her, I asked, “Hmm? Then why hasn't Seth come back yet?”

“He stayed to deal with the remaining weaklings, but I imagine he won't be back for a few more days because he'll have to deal with the aftermath. I don't think he'd just leave the city like that and let it fall into chaos,” she said.

“Damn, that's quite sad,” I replied. “Ah! I mean that he won't be back,” I quickly added, realising that it'd have been really easy to misunderstand my words.

“Haha, don't worry, I knew what you meant even without your explanation. Anyway, have you left your home yet? I can't really visit you since I don't know where you live,” she said.

“I’m in the middle of training, but say, why do you like hanging out with me?” I couldn’t help but ask. This wasn't the first time she called me over since we met, and most of the time she didn't even invite Seth. I also felt that she was quite interested in me for some reason, so I wasn't sure where to put her in my mind.

“Eh? How can you ask something like that so bluntly? That’s so much like you…” she grumbled.

Probably feeling that I started pulling back my soul force, she cried out and said, “Ah, wait! If I have to give you a reason then it's because you are a fellow woman who I can talk to without any regard to my image and my status. I haven't had a good chat partner for more than fifty years, so don't be surprised if I'm a bit clingy,” she replied honestly this time. She sort of felt like a fox most of the time so I didn’t expect that her answer would be so honest.

“I see. Well, you're also the first woman who doesn't think like a goddamn kid and isn't stuck up in her ass and isn't trying to steal my husband for his power. I can also feel at ease around you so I guess it's the same for me,” I replied as I stood up from the ground and then made my way towards the nearest wall of Leviathan. Seth was continuously looking for ways to decrease its mana consumption and optimise the formations since he wanted to make the base as flexible as possible.

Although Skadi didn’t know this, Seth moved Leviathan right over her palace. Thanks to some of the formations, Skadi couldn’t find us with her soul force and scanning abilities. The only reason she could communicate with me was that Seth gave her a special card that let her soul force pass through his formation. But it didn’t let it return so the most she could get was an ‘about’ of my direction.

After a quick scan of the area, I jumped through the black wall of Leviathan and then teleported straight into her room. Her guards and servants haven't seen us yet, so I couldn't go through the front door. She'd have had to come out and let me in that way, though I could have also fought my way in.

The only problem with that was that she asked us on the same day we met to refrain from hurting her servants, so we avoided them instead. Obviously, we had no intention to hurt random people anyway. Seeing ‘someone’ appearing in the middle of her room, she jumped up from the sofa and took a defensive position.

“My, that’s not really welcoming, is it?” I remarked.

“Haah- dammit, you couldn’t teleport by yourself last time so I didn’t expect that it’d be you. For a moment I thought that someone from Light city escaped and came to take revenge or something of the sort,” she sighed as she lowered her arms. “I thought Seth would bring you here again or that you'd come through the front door,” she grumbled.

“I'm not just sitting on my ass, you know? I should have learned this long ago… but I was sort of afraid of teleporting so I kept stalling it. It really didn't help that Seth was bringing me along with him everywhere either. I didn't feel the need to learn it,” I said as I looked around in her room.

She had a giant, pale-blue bed pushed on the wall, which was filled with super soft pillows and plushies. In front of her bed was the door, while on the right was a long sofa with a small table in front of it. The table was filled with snacks and delicious food every time I visited her, and it seemed to be like that even when she had no guests. I had a feeling she liked snacking and her servants had to refill it every morning.

On the left side of the room was a sanctum with a stall in front of it where she spent most of her time meditating. There were all kinds of tiny statues on the sanctum, and one of them was an exact copy of her. The statue was carved out of wood and I had to admit, it was a real masterpiece.

“You're always eyeing my statue when you come over. Could it be that you want it? I wouldn't mind giving it to you as a present,” she called me out.

“Hmm? No, I was just wondering who made it. I would like to get one for Seth, I'm sure it'd look cute,” I said with a smile.

“Urgh, you don't want me?! I'm hurt!” she gasped as she grabbed her chest and fell to her knees.

“Hahaha, stop fooling around. If you really want to give it to me then I'll accept it, but I'm sure it means more to you than just a statue if you put it there,” I said with a smile. Seeing her raising her brows, I added, “I mean, you don’t seem to be narcissistic enough to make someone carve out your statue and then put it on a sanctum.”

Walking past me, she put her finger on the head of the statue and said, "It really does. It was given to me by my late friend,” she said, a sad smile slowly forming on her face.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up,” I apologised.

“Haha, don't worry about it. Rather, I have good news for you!” she clapped as she turned on her heels and pulled me over to the sofa.

“What could it be?” I raised my brows.

“I tested your husband's faithfulness, and he passed!” she said with enthusiasm.

“So what? I told you that it was pointless, but whatever,” I shook my head as I took a seat on the sofa.

Taking a seat on my right, she crossed her legs and started laughing, “Hahaha, I guess it was. Originally I wanted to test him thoroughly, but seeing his hate filled reaction and the way he called me a bitch, I realised it was pointless.”

“I can't say I'm happy about your tests. I told you not to do it,” I shook my head.

“I know, I know, but I couldn't believe that a guy would react as coldly to a woman's advances as you made it sound. Now I understand that you were telling the truth, okay?” she looked at me with her big eyes, waiting for a positive answer.

“Okay… but don't do it again. I trust him and I don't need other women to prove his faithfulness. It's also annoying when I imagine how you climbed on him,” I couldn’t help but start feeling more and more jealous as I imagined the scene. She was sort of getting on my nerves sometimes with her hyperactivity but I could ignore it for the most part and deeper inside she was a nice person.

“I'm sorry, I won't do it again so please don't be angry with me,” she lowered her head and hugged me.

“It's fine,” I waved my hand. “By the way, can't you do something about your rules? We'd have to join your army if we wanted to enter the cities and it's annoying.”

“Eeeh? You don't want to form an alliance with me?” she cried out in exasperation.

“Nah, I don't want to serve you… we’re allied already.”

“Hahaha, you do realise that you wouldn’t have to, right? Either way, I'm the queen and whatever I say is the law, so there are multiple ways to solve this. There is one little problem, though. You see, one of the options is that I could turn you into a high-ranking military personnel. I could also accompany you every time, but I imagine you wouldn’t want that and it could become troublesome for me as well.”

“I could also give you two some kind of new status which would let you come straight to me, but I’d still have to introduce you personally to the local soldiers. Whichever of these I do, you won’t be able to stay undercover and it’ll also cause a bit of a ruckus since I rarely make exceptions. People would definitely want to find out more about you even if I gave you some special emblem and then introduced it as the ‘pass’ to my room,” she said.

“Erm, so no matter what, I either teleport in or become a public face?” I muttered.

“Yes,” she nodded.

After pondering about something for a few seconds, I clapped my hands and said, “Hey! I’ve got an idea! How about you become Seth’s apprentice and you declare that to your country!”

“...”

“What? It’d be great,” I said, seeing her staring at me with dead fish eyes.

“So you’re asking me to become Seth’s apprentice, and by doing so, hand over the country that took a lot of my effort to build, right?” she asked, slowing down after each word she spoke.

“Hmm, I think that the ‘master’ you and I talk about are different. For one, people wouldn’t start revering Seth even if he tried to take over your country. The people grew up believing in you and respecting you, so what you said shouldn’t happen unless your people are dissatisfied with you. As I see it, that’s clearly not the case…”

“If he was your Master, he’d teach you magic and you’d be eligible to enter Leviathan, but in turn, you’d have to obey his commands. Those commands wouldn’t be related to your country either, so you could continue being the queen. Your tasks would be related to guiding others and dealing with bad people like Thanatos,” I said.

“I admit that it sounds great considering that I’d get to learn from Seth, but why does it sound like a scam? How would he make sure that after learning a few things, I wouldn't just stand up and leave? If he has no way to deal with those kinds of people then this is a very bad idea. I may be a different matter since we’re friends or at least, I consider you one, but others would definitely screw him over,” she said with a frown.

”You don’t have to worry about us, he thought of a way to deal with those kinds of people,” I smiled at her.

“And how does he do that?” she raised her brows. “Will he make people take an oath like Thanatos or what? Though I’m not sure if that’s even possible. If I know it right, that oath was a part of his commandment and was called ‘The Reaper’s Song’. Does your husband have something similar?”

Seeing that I kept quiet and didn’t intend to share it with her, she said, “Listen, nobody is going to serve your husband if you aren’t willing to share simple information like that.”

“Is that so? Then what about you? How did you found this country?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“Well, back then I was quite a bit wilder and fought a lot for fun, and also because some men didn’t know whom they shouldn’t offend. After fighting and beating most of the powerhouses in the area, I quickly became famous. People were basically living in tribes and I was nothing but a traveller, moving back and forth between them. On a fated day an idea struck my head, which was that I should unite the tribes.”

“When I proposed my idea to a few of the leaders, I was surprised to see them approving of it. At first, I didn’t understand why, but I soon found out that it was because they all wanted to be the new king or queen. They started a tournament to see who was the strongest and as a famous and powerful warrior, I was also allowed to contend for the position.”

“Naturally, it was an easy win for me since I was a god incarnation. Although the tribe leaders were very dissatisfied with the result, I slowly but surely consolidated my authority and got rid of them. Well, they were asking for it since some of them even tried to assassinate me. With my achievements piling up, my fame grew greater and greater until people started looking up to me.”

“It started out small but over the years it turned crazier and crazier, and it got to the point where they’d be willing to die if I commanded them. They even formed a religion for me, which is really nice,” she said.

“Heeh~ it must be nice being popular. The only thing I’ve ever got from men are lewd looks."

“Why'd you be so sarcastic? I wasn’t trying to show off,” she grumbled.

Furrowing her brows, she asked, “So tell me, how do you intend to do that? God incarnations wouldn’t start respecting Seth like a god since they know where ‘gods’ are coming from. We are just very powerful humans with lots of knowledge.”

Looking straight into her eyes, I said, “This is just my personal opinion but as the world is, it doesn’t matter whether people know or don’t know what ‘gods’ are. Strength is something that makes people look up to you, no matter what. This is one thing I came to realise in these last few weeks. Most of us look up to people who are stronger than us, but this is only if we can see beyond our own envy.”

“Those who envied you fell and those who could see beyond it started serving you. Thanks to your efforts and your hard work, their respect grew stronger and stronger until it reached a point where they started worshipping you. You’ve fought alongside my husband and have seen a glimpse of his strength, so tell me, don’t you feel some respect for him?”

Staring back at me, her eyes lost focus as she started pondering about it, and then nodded, “I see where you’re coming from. I do feel that he’s superior in power and seeing that he’s a rather calm and easy going person, I admit I’ve taken a liking to him. But do you think that’d be enough to stop everyone from leaving once they learned enough? You can’t possibly be that naive, Lien,” she said, placing her hand on my shoulder.

“Haha, of course, I’m not. This is just one of our long-term plans. Seth also wants to travel the world and visit other colonies to help the poor.”

“Do you mean that you want to ‘save’ homeless and poor people to make them grateful and then teach them to turn them into powerful and faithful servants?” she asked.

“I don’t think ‘servant’ is the right term to describe them, but if that’s how you see it,” I shrugged. “It’s going to take more time, but if you want faithful followers, you’ve got to raise them yourself. Regarding people who would leave after learning a bit, my husband isn’t so stupid to teach just anyone. People are striving to become stronger, but their true nature becomes visible when they’re in a life and death situation, and even simpler tests would be enough to filter most of those people.”

Leaning closer to her, I took hold of her hands and said, “The reason I asked you to join is that I trust you. I know that we haven’t known each other for long, but I could tell on the first sight that you weren’t a bad person. I think that Leviathan is going to turn into something great in the future and if you want to be a part of it, you should join now.”

“Are you some kind of marketing manager?” she asked with a frown.

“I’ve never tried that kind of job,” I shook my head.

“You should have. I think that you’d have done well,” she started laughing. Sighing loudly, she rubbed her eyes for a few seconds and then said, “Look, I feel that I can trust you and that it wouldn’t be a bad thing, but let me think about it for now. I have to consider many things as the queen of this country.”

“Of course, but I’m sure you’re going to have a great time with us,” I smiled at her.

“You should see yourself right now. You look like a fox which is about to strike its prey…”

“I can assure you that it’d be a good deal for you,” I said sincerely this time.

“I can’t help but believe you when you say it like that,” she smiled at me.

The secret I didn’t want to tell her was the inner workings of Leviathan. It made sense that Seth had no mana left on the day he built it, but what I found strange was that he was devoid of mana even three days later.

It was weird since it regenerated every night and in the morning I could feel that he was full. After asking him about its reason, he told me that it was because he was building a very consuming formation. He further analysed Link and found out that it was possible to make people feel attached to others through their souls.

The only problem was that if he did it quickly, people would notice the change and would leave Leviathan in fear of being enslaved and stuff like that. He wasn’t a bad person and didn’t intend to use it for those kinds of things. He just wanted to make the people feel attached to Leviathan and feel happy when they learned and worked there. It was just a small piece of soul magic which I had to admit, was quite similar to mind magic.

But it wouldn’t affect their thinking directly. Sometimes we left behind things that made us happy even if we didn’t want to and Leviathan would be the same. People would be able to leave it if their dreams and goals changed, but they’d always feel attached to it and would be willing to help anytime.

That was all Seth needed. He didn’t want a tight master-servant relationship where people would breathe on his neck all day, waiting for their next command. People would continue living their lives, but they’d keep wanting to go back to Leviathan. It’d make them feel as if it was their home, and who wouldn’t want to protect their own home? Of course, there were bound to be more enthusiastic and more free-willed members alike, but that was still far away in the future.

For now, we needed a few ‘core’ members who would be willing to teach the people Seth picked up. Once I learned enough, I’d also join and Seth would obviously be the core of everything. I had only one problem which made me feel a little worried. As the creator of that formation and Leviathan, there was a risk that the members would start fostering unwanted emotions for him, though I kind of hoped that it wouldn’t be more than a parental connection. That was normal between Master and Student anyway.

“Say, do you want to check out the palace? I’ve never shown you around before,” Skadi broke me out of my thoughts.

Raising my head, I nodded, “Um, I’m alright with that, but I don’t want to spend too much time here. I’ve got to work hard for things to work out the way we want and I can’t be protected by Seth for the rest of my life. Or more like, I don’t want to be protected.”

“Well, you’ve grown quite a lot since I’ve met you so I can assure you that you’re doing great. If you keep getting stronger at this pace, you’re going to leave me behind…”

“Then you better join and learn something,” I winked at her.

“That’s cheating,” she grumbled as she made her way towards the door.

Placing my hand on her shoulder, I stopped her and said, “Wait, what about your servants? Aren’t they going to question me?”

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

“I don’t really mind it, though I’m not sure about Seth,” I shook my head.

“He isn’t even here so let’s go,” she shrugged and then opened the door. There were two giant men standing in front of the door with their backs facing us. Most likely hearing the noise of the clicking door, both of them turned around and lowered their heads.

“You can raise your heads,” she said and then took hold of my hand and pulled me forward. “This person here is called Lien and she’s my friend so if you ever see her in the palace, bring her straight to me.”

“My, and what if you were having a meeting? Wouldn’t I disturb it?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“You’d contact me with your soul force before coming anyway, wouldn’t you? So I don’t think that you could disturb anything since I’d tell you to come later,” she said.

“If that’s how you want it,” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Your Majesty, may I ask who this person is?” one of them asked.

“I’ve just said that she’s called Lien- never mind, I guess you didn’t mean her name, though why don’t you ask her instead?”

The giant man turned towards me and waited in silence. “I come from a far-away land where people use external magic. I’ll be seventeen years old in a few months and I have a husband whose name is Seth. Is there anything else you want to know?” I said with a smile.

“External magic? But only her Majesty can use-” he started muttering and then his face lit up as if he had gained enlightenment.

“Your Majesty!” he turned towards Skadi and shouted in his excitement. “Could it be that external magic is the tool of gods and goddesses like you?”

“Eh? Haha, I wouldn’t say that, but she’s certainly at the level of some of these ‘gods’ you speak of,” she started laughing.

Turning towards me, he lowered his head and said, “You have my respect, Miss Lien. I can sense that your powers are far beyond mine and you’re also her Highness’ friend, so please feel free to call me by my family name, Walsh.”

“Huh? Ah, thanks, but there is no need to be so respectful,” I waved my hand, finding his sudden change of behaviour a little awkward. I wasn’t used to this kind of treatment, especially with men.

Leaning closer to Skadi, I whispered into her ear, “Hey, do they bow often or is this because you’re present?”

“Well, they look up to powerful people but I haven’t seen them bowing in front of others even if I was present. It’s probably because they’ve never met someone who was as strong as you. I’m also sure that they wouldn’t be able to see through Seth, which would sort of put him on the same level as me in their mind.”

“Won’t this shake their faith in you?” I asked through my soul force.

“No. These cold lands aren’t that simple, you know? Living in this area manipulates common people’s minds to some degree,” she winked at me.

“You’re quite evil, aren’t you?”

“Follow me,” she said as she walked past me, ignoring my question.

Well, we are doing something similar. Could it be that she was pretending that she didn’t know how we wanted to keep people in Leviathan?

“Are you coming?” she asked, seeing that I was standing there, unmoving.

“Ah, I’m coming,” I quickly regained focus and followed her.

During my tour, I've got all kinds of looks from the servants in the palace while the stronger ones also asked Skadi about my origin. The palace was huge so I had many encounters and she even showed me the treasury. There was a huge pile of gold in there, combined with large stacks of Skaals.

“Look at you, aren't you really rich?” I couldn't help but laugh, seeing all that money hidden in her underground room.

“I am the ruler of this country, did you think that I was poor?” she also laughed.

“No, it's just that I've never seen this much money in one place. But… I don't feel 'pressured’ by the sight or tempted to take it. I'm sure it would have been different in the past. Seth also turned into a millionaire in Balan and we still have the money, supposedly. It felt so unreal at that time but now… I think we're poorer than ever in this country and it doesn't even matter,” I chuckled as I started reminiscing.

“I see where you're coming from. With your abilities you certainly don't need money to get by. You've just got to buy spices and small stuff like that to make your life complete. Am I right?” she asked.

“That's really the case. We can build stuff anywhere, even if it's a wasteland and we can still go back to Balan if we want to buy simple stuff like that,” I nodded.

Walking up to a stack of money, she pulled out a handful of skaals and held it in front of me. “You take this and do whatever you want with it. There are exactly five million skaals in a stack like this. I imagine it should be enough for your rare usage,” she said.

Glancing at Walsh and the other man, I saw them looking straight ahead without blinking, but their eyes couldn't hide their envy. Not everyone had the chance to step out of the material world and live without any money. I'd have found it unimaginable half a year ago and yet here I was, all because of my husband.

Smiling at her, I pushed her hand back and said, “I'm sure your people work for their money so it'd be really unfair if you just gave me so much of it. I can always hunt for that little amount I need so don't worry about it. Give it to your servants instead.”

“Miss Lien, I truly appreciate your concern and although I admit that I'd feel a little envious, I also know that we live in different worlds. You shouldn't feel concerned by us,” Walsh gathered his courage and spoke up.

“Alright, but I still don't need it. It'd go to waste in my hands,” I chuckled.

Shaking her head, Skadi pulled out a few bank notes and said, “Take this then. It's only fifty thousand and even he earns this much in two days.”

“Eh? But I-” I was about to refuse but noticing Skadi’s desperate eyes, I accepted it with a long sigh. I realised I was probably making her lose face by not accepting it first, so once I took the money, I teleported back to Leviathan, put the money in my purse and teleported back to her. After that, we finished touring the palace in about five minutes and she also invited Seth and me for lunch.

Since I forgot to have breakfast with all that training, I accepted her invitation and also notified Seth. Although he came about five minutes later, he still showed up and ate with us, which made me sort of happy. I knew he was busy and he still took his time to eat with me. I really appreciated that. Of course, we ate in Skadi’s room since he didn’t intend to make an appearance, for now.

After having lunch, he took me back to Leviathan and said, “Alright, I’m going back now. I’ll see you in the evening.”

“Wait a moment, there is something I want to tell you,” I grabbed his hand and stopped him.

“What’s up?” he raised his brows.

“This is something that’s been bothering me ever since Skadi told me about it. She told me about her testing you and-”

“Is that so? And what did she say? Because I didn’t-” he interrupted me to defend himself, even though I didn’t even bring it up to accuse him of anything. I found it somewhat annoying, it wasn’t like I gave him a reason to think that I didn’t trust him. I had my moments when I was jealous, sure, but I never doubted him.

“I know,” I covered his mouth and continued - “I just wanted to tell you that I told her not to test you and that it wasn’t my idea to begin with. I obviously trust you, even if we still count as newly weds because I think I know you better than anyone. Well, maybe your mother is a contender in that regard but you get my point.”

“Were you worried that I’d get annoyed by the test?” he put his hand on my head and started laughing.

“So what if yes? Weren’t you annoyed? I’m asking because I think I’d be if stuff like this kept repeating itself, and this wasn’t the first time either,” I grumbled.

“I can’t say I was happy about it and it does make me happy to hear that it wasn’t initiated by you, but as you said, we’re still newly weds so stuff like this doesn’t get on my nerves for now. Hearing that you trust me makes me happy, and I can also tell you that I don’t doubt you. Are we clear now?” he asked as he smiled at me.

Quickly looking around and seeing that nobody was present, I stood on my toes and kissed him on the lips. As I pulled back, I put my finger on my lips, still feeling his lips on mine. “There’ll be more if you come home,” I muttered.

“I didn’t plan to sleep for the next few days to deal with everything quickly and I don’t intend to change that, but I’ll definitely come back home for this ‘more’ you speak of,” he said and then disappeared.

At times like these he felt like the wind, he just came and went but I knew he had important things to deal with and I couldn’t really help him. Luckily, I was starting to get strong enough to be of help to him and had some other stuff to do. I didn’t have to sit on my ass and wait to be ‘saved’ and helped every time.

Turning around, I walked through the snow-covered plains of Leviathan and entered our house. Although we’ve had lunch with Skadi, we ran out of food at home so I quickly cooked a simple stew for Seth and then teleported to the place where he first killed one of Sylvanus’ doppelgangers.

Although Seth wanted to pick up orphans and poor people only, I believed we needed a few talented god incarnations as well. It was indeed better to train our own people but there was no way that it’d be quick enough. It was much quicker to train god incarnations, even if they were lesser ones since their souls were much stronger. Once I told him about my idea, he also agreed and told me that I should make the necessary steps to lure in a few god incarnations. Naturally, people like them wouldn’t be interested in money, luxury, or anything of the sort.

We both were of the opinion that they’d want to join us only if we could amaze them and made them feel how little they knew about magic. Even if I counted as ‘talented’ because I learned quickly, I’d be nowhere near my current level if not for Seth’s teachings. Although my mana and soul force were quite a bit behind Skadi, I believed my knowledge covered a larger portion of magic. I just had to bring my knowledge in every topic to her level.

The area was still a barren land grazed to the ground with a lush forest encircling it, except for a door in the middle of it. That door was something that I put there and it hid a stairway which led deep underground. Of course, I was the one who brought this whole thing up so I was also the one who was responsible for building these bases.

Once I closed the door behind me, the glaring sun was also closed out, once again returning the stairway to its usual, dimly lit state. I intentionally inscribed only a thin, fluorescent line of mana onto the walls which went all the way down the stairs, combining in the middle of the circular room at the bottom. The mana lines turned into a formation which the visitors would have to fix to continue.

If the formation was fixed, three pathways leading to three different directions would be revealed but since I was still building the lower levels, I left them opened. Those who came here in the future would have to pick one based on some factors but I removed the mana from the other formations as well after I was done with testing them.

I continued on my way through one room after the other until I reached the last room. Seth told me that we should build multiple examinary bases around the world before we made our first move, which turned out to be great practise for me.

I learned way more and way quicker by practising spatial magic and laying hundreds of formations on a daily basis. I had been a practical learner all my life, so it was no wonder that I was growing stronger much quicker. There were still parts of these bases that I had yet to plan and build but once I knew what it should be like, it wouldn’t be hard to build more of them.

--- Seth’s POV (one week after freeing Light city) ---

“Aaaah~ I’m finally done dealing with all this shit,” I couldn’t help but moan as I sat down in the hot spring in our house. Lien became quite productive while I was away and both Leviathan and the base she built had seen many changes. This hot spring was also her idea and feeling my body being soaked in the hot water, I couldn’t help but regret that I had never thought of it.

Peeking down from the corner of my eye, I grabbed her breast with my right hand and said, “And the best is that I finally get to have you around again.”

“I also missed you, though I was quite busy with all the building and planning so I had little time to think about you,” she said.

“Mhm, people tend to think more about their loved ones if they’re bored,” I nodded.

“I guess that’s true. It’s not that you weren’t on my mind, it’s more like you were only one of the many things that were on my mind,” she laughed.

“I know, I know. Anyway, how did you do with the base? Have you finished the basics yet?”

“I’m mostly done with everything, you’ll just have to pour your mana into the formations, though I think that it wouldn’t hurt if you also tested them. I’m still rather new to laying formations, after all,” she replied, leaning on my shoulder.

“Could you stop fondling me already?” she muttered.

“Haha, okay. Anyway, what about Lana? Have you spent enough time with her while I was away? I hope you didn’t neglect her because of-”

“Absolutely not. I even slept in my parents’ house a few times and also chatted with them a lot. My mother also helped me in making up the tests that people would have to go through. Oh, right, your parents have perfected their flying magic and can fly around without any problems now. I also taught them how to sense souls and it took them only six days which was better than your expectations,” she said.

“Hmm, that’s great. They’ll be able to better their ‘talent’ that way and then it’ll be easier for them to learn magic. Even in the worst case scenario where they start slacking off, they should reach your current level in about ten years. Though… I hope that they won’t slack off thinking it'd enough,” I couldn’t help but frown.

“Oh, right, Skadi hasn’t decided yet but I think I’ll catch her the next time I visit her. After I told her that we may leave soon and won't come back for many years, she turned quite desperate to make me sell out the location of Leviathan.”

Raising my brows, I looked at her and asked, “What about you? Wouldn’t you feel sad if we left her? Despite your behaviour, you seem to like her as well.”

“My behaviour? What are you talking about? I’m not cold to her or anything of the sort. We’re meeting on a daily basis and are having good times together. I also consider her a friend so I’d be sad to leave her here, which is also the reason I’m trying to make her join,” she shook her head in her confusion.

“Never mind then. I thought you were giving her the cold shoulder,” I waved my hands.

“Absolutely not. She’s my first friend!” she raised her fist.

“That’s… kind of sad,” I couldn’t help but start laughing.

“... You can be a real asshole sometimes, even if it’s true,” she said with a frown.

Turning things a bit more serious, I said, “There is one more thing. I want to visit Balan tomorrow and see what’s going on there because I haven’t seen Leo ever since the day he contacted me. It’s kind of bugging me and I should also free the people from Mary’s commandment.”

“I’ll go with you in that case, I also want to take care of a few things which I can only do in Balan,” she said.

“Okay,” I shrugged my shoulders and then moved in front of her. Looking me in the eyes, she slowly opened her legs and smiled at me devilishly. Unable to resist our desires, we indulged in each other’s bodies that night. After a whole week of ‘break’, it felt even better.

---

“Hm~hm~hmm~hm~” I woke up to Lien’s humming, followed by the strong fragrance of some godly meat.

Filled with energy, I jumped out of my bed and walked into the kitchen, “What are you cooking?”

Turning towards me she said “I’m cooking- hyah! Dammit, why are you standing there naked? What if my parents came in?” she cried out in her surprise.

“Hmm? Oh, I forgot my pants, but I’d notice if someone came this way,” I replied as I went back to the room and dressed up. After having breakfast together, we visited our parents and told them that we’d be off for a few hours.

When we were done saying our goodbyes, both of us teleported to where our house stood in the past and then flew over to Mary's mansion. Considering the difference in power between us, I wasn't worried about confronting her head on.

“I imagine you don’t want to knock on their door, so can I just go in?” Lien asked, looking at the yard from above.

“I don't want to bother with formalities. We didn't come here to befriend her,” I shook my head and then landed on the ground. I was expecting some sort of reaction but the truth was that I couldn't see anyone. The yard was devoid of any life, which I found really weird. After a quick scan I found quite a lot of presences but they were all in the mansion.

“Strange, I thought there would be people in front of the gates and at other places as well. They were the top ranking noble clan, after all,” Lien also found it weird.

Since I was in a bit of a hurry, I stopped pondering about the matter and entered the mansion. The first person I met was squatting in the middle of the corridor, rocking back and forth on his heels. The guy looked really creepy and even reminded me of those zombie movies I had seen.

“Sir, are you okay?” Lien walked closer and tapped the man's shoulder.

Raising his head, he looked at her with his bloodshot, tear-filled eyes and said, “She's gone. My Goddess is gone.”

“What happened,” she asked with a frown but all she got was silence. The man also lowered his head and continued rocking back and forth. As we continued on our way inside, I had to cleanse one person after the other since their minds were messed up. Their reactions were also similar but the real problem was that neither of them told us what exactly happened.

Our luck changed only when we reached Mary's private quarter where she held her 'dogs’. I could sense that she wasn't in Balan but I wanted to know why. Well, considering the first guy’s response and that the others said similar things, I could guess what happened but I wanted to see an actual proof.

“Could you tell us what happened?” Lien asked a woman who was ‘following the trend’ in this mansion…

“Our goddess is gone!” she cried out as she raised her head.

“We've heard that already but where did she go?” I asked.

“She was murdered! A young man clad in black clothes came in and then killed the whole White family. Only servants like us were left untouched,” she said, her voice shaking and her lips quivering.

Finally someone who is willing to talk.

“Could you tell me what did this man look like and when did this happen?” I leaned closer and asked.

“I- he had blonde hair and golden eyes, that's all I remember about him, and it happened two days ago.”

Grabbing my arm, she asked, “Can you bring her back? I feel that my life isn't complete without her. Maybe I should stop exist-” not wishing to listen to her rambling, I knocked her out and then removed all those nasty marks that were placed on her mind.

“It was Leo, right?” Lien asked.

“Mhm,” I nodded. “Although what he said about Light city was true for the most part, he didn’t even make an appearance. For some reason I sort of feel as if I had cut the tree under myself. When I threw Thanatos into his prison, he also said something disturbing. He told me he was only the forerunner and that I'd die anyway. I tried asking him for more details but no matter what I asked, he kept silent afterwards.”

“Well, he can continue living in that silent dark pit for the rest of his life because nobody is going to find their way to Leviathan, even if there were trackers put on him. Then again, I checked him thoroughly and couldn’t find anything,” I said.

“I think this just proves how much we need to find capable people”, she sighed loudly. “I'm sure there is more to this in the background. You are strong but if there are multiple people who are even stronger than Thanatos, not even you’ll be able to deal with them.”

“Meh, I don’t like it but it’s a fact so I can’t help but accept it. We’ve got to find out as much about who we’re facing as possible else we’ll be screwed over. Also, Leo was either a member of this mysterious group or joined it while I dealt with Thanatos and his servants. Maybe that was his goal all along,” I shook my head. It felt as if I was walking behind someone else the whole time and it was annoying.

While I healed the White family and the servants, Lien left to buy a few cows and some other things that she found necessary. Ever since we left Balan, I couldn't drink any milk, so I was kind of excited by the idea. I even urged her to go and get it.

It took about three hours to fix everyone, and then tell them what happened to them. Their continuous interruption and questioning didn't make it quicker either, but it was understandable.

Most people probably didn't even know what happened to Mary, which meant that panic could be avoided. Jonathan would be able to continue ruling over the city once he got over all the new information he received. I told them that Mary was killed by a monster instead of the truth. They were better off not seeking revenge against god incarnations. Well, it was unlikely to happen considering that they remembered what Mary did to them but it was better safe than sorry.

“Ah, right, why don’t we buy seeds and produce everything ourselves instead of buying it elsewhere. It’d be quite shameful if people who started living in Leviathan would have to go to other places just to get the necessary materials,” Lien cried out.

We were in the local supermarket to buy a few things and seeing small packets of tomato seeds, she remembered that we were still missing basic things.

“Ah, you’re right. I admit I kind of forgot about it since I was busy with Light city and you also took care of food, so there was nothing to remind me of our shortcomings,” I laughed, scratching the back of my head.

Lost in picking the necessary seeds, she didn’t even react to what I said and just kept throwing the packets into the shopping cart. Noticing that I was looking at her ‘weirdly’, she turned towards me and asked, “Sorry, did you say something?”

“Never mind…” I rolled my eyes.

“I’m sor-”

“It’s fine,” I waved my hand. Once we were done with picking the seeds, we were about to leave the ‘gardening’ row when we ran into a few familiar faces.

“Lien and Seth?” Olaf asked. He was the first crappy noble who tried to pick up Lien when we started going out. Well, once I beat him he left school.

“Do you know these people?” one of the two guys next to him asked. They both had expensive-looking clothes and felt strong compared to the norm here.

“I do,” he muttered, glancing at me for a moment. Considering the difference in power, I couldn’t help but see them as ants at this point. Regardless, Olaf didn’t seem to be looking for trouble.

“It’s been a long time ago,” Lien said with a smile. For some reason I could feel the air burning from the tension when she smiled at him. It was kind of creepy.

“Ye-Yeah,” he stuttered for some reason.

“Did you use your soul force or what?” I asked her through Link.

“I just warned him not to cause trouble,” she said.

“Oh, okay.”

“Are you friends?” the same guy as before asked.

“We’re just acquaintances,” I said.

Furrowing his brows, he looked at me and then ran his eyes over Lien. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“Hahaha, I’m not. I’m his wife,” Lien said as she raised her hand, her voice filled with amusement. “Anyway, it was nice to meet you but we’ve got some stuff to take care of so we’re leaving,” she added as she walked past him.

I also pushed the cart past them without any trouble but after taking a few steps, the same guy cried out and said, “Ah! I remember you two! I didn’t understand why did you two look so familiar but I remember you now. You ranked second right after Mary White on the trial, right?”

Turning around, I nodded my head, “Yeah.”

“Weren’t you challenged by many noble clans? But then you suddenly disappeared from school and the headmaster also made a deal with the noble clans to withdraw their challenge if you ranked in the top three of the yearly tournament.”

“Oh, I forgot about that to be honest and it’s also unlikely that I’d attend a crappy tournament like that,” I said.

“What do you mean by crappy? That’s where the best magicians and warriors show their skills and the fruit of their hard work!”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have called it crappy. Anyway, I don’t live in this country anymore and I’m not going to attend school either, so I have no reason to take part,” I replied as I turned around and continued on my way.

“What do you mean by that? Where else can you live if not in this country?” he shook his head in confusion.

“This city and this country aren’t the only ones around in the world. If you become strong enough you can move between them freely,” I replied, and then teleported into another section of the supermarket.

“Baa- if you become strong enough, bla, bla, bla, baa- Hahaha, what was with that flashy speech?” Lien started talking in a deep voice to imitate me.

“What was flashy about it? I just wanted to leave and it seemed to be easier this way,” I stuck out my tongue.

“Hmm~ if that’s what you say. Anyway, thanks to them I forgot what I wanted to buy,” she grumbled. She kept thinking hard about it for a few seconds but not even frowning helped her, “Meh, I can’t remember. Whatever, I’ll just come back if I remember and it is important enough.”

“Let’s leave in that case. I don’t want to run into anyone else who knows us. I should also donate our money to some kind of charity or something, though I should leave enough money on my bank account to pay Elena every month,” I said.

“Didn’t you set it as a recurring payment?” she raised her brows.

“I did. Well, I may give her a bit more before leaving, it’s not like I’ll need any money from now on. If we really need something I’ll use my trait to create it.”

“Well, you could give it all to her for all I care,” she shrugged her shoulders. It felt quite strange to talk like that about money. About two months ago I was still struggling to make my spells consume as little mana as I could so that I wouldn’t run out of it and I didn’t have much hope considering my future.

Lien always said that she was grateful for all my teachings but I was just as grateful for all the lewd things I could do to her. It not only felt good it even helped me in becoming really strong…

Once we were done shopping, we returned to Leviathan and took a day of rest. We haven’t had a lot of chances to spend time together during the last week, so this was also the best time to make up for it. In the end, we gathered the whole family into one house and spent some time together.

The next day Skadi invited us for another visit but I wanted to check out the base Lien built first so I let her go ahead of me and teleported there only when I was finished. There was only one problem with all this, which was that I moved to Lien’s location with WORD magic without a second thought but as it turned out, they were in the middle of some kind of conference.

When I appeared there were about ten people staring at me with at least two guards behind each of them. Noticing that there was an ‘intruder’, the nearest guards jumped towards me with incredible reaction speed and pointed their spears and swords at my face.

“Who are you?!” one of them shouted.

“Hi, honey!” Lien waved her hand and laughed at me.

“Eh? I thought you were in her room so I moved to your location with WORD magic but this isn’t…” I said with a surprised face, stopping towards the end when one of the guards pressed the blade of his spear against my face.

Tilting my head to the side, I put my finger on the man’s spear and pushed it away. “Could you stop swinging that thing in front of my face? Please? Also, you two, for how long do you intend to watch?” I asked with a frown, seeing that Skadi kept silent.

“I can’t help but think that it’d be fun to keep quiet and treat you as an intruder, but then my guards would be hurt so I’ll clarify the situation,” she laughed. “Guards, lower your weapons! He isn't someone you could deal with anyway.”

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” I also apologised. They were just doing their job.

“Ah, no, Sir. It’s our mistake,” the man bowed down in front of me.

“Eh? Why are you bowing in front of me?” I asking in my confusion, looking back and forth between Skadi and him.

Raising his head, he looked into my eyes and said, “Her Majesty told us about Miss Lien’s husband and she also told us to treat you respectfully. When you appeared I thought you were an intruder but when I tried to sense your power and her Majesty told us to lower our weapons, I realised who you are.”

“Oh, I see, but there is no need to be all stiff around me. You can just ignore me,” I said and then stepped closer to Lien. “So? What are you doing here?” I asked through Link.

“An important meeting came up and since she didn’t want to send me away, she brought me with her. That’s why I’m just standing here, silently listening to this meeting,” she replied. Anyway, who cares about this? What was the base like? What are your thoughts about it?”

“You made two mistakes towards the end but I fixed them. Regarding the structure and stuff like that, I liked it. Well, and since you went ahead and activated everything, I had to complete the test…”

“Hahaha, I did it intentionally, though I imagine it was as easy for you as breathing,” she laughed at it.

“Of course, but the targets of these tests will be weaker than me and will know less about magic than me.”

“Well, I’m looking forwards to seeing the results,” she said.

Once the meeting ended, we finally managed to talk Skadi into joining us. She was the first core member of Leviathan other than us. I was really looking forward to the future.

---

(AN:// And now peeps... we're all caught up with the latest released chapter. From here on out there'll be fewer updates since it takes time to write these long ass chapters, but they're going to arrive nonetheless. You may read the next chapters on Amazon or Patreon (+1 chapter) if you really can't wait, but then again, you can read the whole stuff for free here and on Royal Road so do this only if you want to support me. Now then... have a nice day, I'm off to write the 17th chapter. *salutes*)