Chapter 1957: Increasing Divinity Points
Chapter 1957: Increasing Divinity Points
It was quiet and somewhat serene on the way back after meeting with High Lord Rashal.
Rex stared out the window, watching the blur of the street passing by as the driver brought him back to his penthouse. Davina was already back home, probably waiting anxiously for his return, so he decided to head straight back after the meeting concluded.
He’s now in the same boat as High Lord Rashal.
And he would need to find a way to survive, stop the boat from sinking, and bring it to shore.
Of course, High Lord Rashal and many others would also be helping. He’s not alone. But compared to the size of the boat, the immense seat of a High Lord, even with their number, it would still be very hard to reach their destination.
Hard to help High Lord Rashal maintain his position as the High Lord.
High Lord Ursa invited him to a small banquet, huh.
Rex recalled what happened earlier.
Inside the letter was High Lord Ursa’s social invitation directed to High Lord Rashal and his people to attend a modest banquet on the day after tomorrow. The modest banquet was held to commemorate the spirit of longevity and cooperation for everyone under the Overseer.
But it was blatantly obvious that this banquet was a mockery for High Lord Rashal.
He wanted to boast of his victory, though indirectly. Politics.
High Lord Rashal could not refuse to come. Refusing would only make him look weak—which was the complete opposite of what he needed to do right about now. If High Lord Ursa was going to convince other High Lords to go against High Lord Rashal, then he needed to put up a strong front.
An unshakable front that would dissuade others from agreeing easily.
Of course, Rex was going to attend this modest banquet.
High Lord Rashal said that it’s better for him to come—so that he can see the person they were dealing with in the flesh, and Rex agreed. He needed to see for himself what his enemy looked like, and perhaps identify a crack in the enemy’s armour.
If the System couldn’t point out the obvious, then Davina and Lilliana most certainly could.
Higher realms and lower realms are differentiated by the level of power within them.
Naturally, the Good Realm stood among the strongest, if not the strongest of all realms, while the Spirit Realm was a shattered husk that barely clung to existence. And yet, beyond the average level of power, the inhabitants are still sentient and intelligent people.
Political figures in this realm would not be that much different compared to the ones in the Spirit Realm.
And that meant Davina and Lilliana would most certainly be able to help.
"I’m back..."
Rex pushed the door open and walked inside.
He reached the living room and saw Davina was already standing up from the sofa, anxious.
"How did it go?" She asked with a hint of worry in her voice. "What did he do? Did he—?"
A smile tugged Rex’s lips when he saw her looking worried, which didn’t suit her at all. Someone like her is more suited to be strong and collected, so seeing her like this made him smile. And frankly, she looked cute right now.
But then again, her worry was warranted.
Considering the situation, she probably thought that Rex might not even come back.
Imprisoned or worse, killed on the spot.
Seeing him safe made her feel a bit relieved, but not enough to entirely get rid of the thorn in her chest.
"He’s going to execute me in an hour."
"What?!"
"Relax, I was kidding." Rex raised his hands—surprised that Davina would react so strongly. His eyes then trailed to the second bedroom as an excited smile curled onto his lips. "I was only in a good mood since it seemed like a surprise was waiting for me."
"Sigh..." Davina massaged her forehead. "It’s not the time to play around like that."
Rex ignored her and walked to the second bedroom.
He twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open, only to see a surprising scene.
"Ah..." Lilliana’s eyes widened when she saw Rex entering the room. She then huffed and placed both hands on her waist, "I already made countermeasures to make sure you can’t sense what I’m doing—but I forgot, nothing escaped your senses."
"Of course," Rex crossed his arms—as he watched four people standing idly inside the bedroom. Each one had a heresy mark on them—so he could already tell that these were his slaves. "I thought you’d return in panic. I underestimated you."
"I’ll give credit when it’s due." Lilliana’s eyes shifted to Davina. "She told me that you would probably want me to complete my task, so I did."
"And she’s completely right," Rex nodded, pleased that Lilliana stayed behind to deal with her task.
"How did it go?’
"Instead of me telling you, why don’t you check yourself?"
"Oh? That confident, huh."
His eyes flickered with a light only he could see as he scanned the four slaves with the System.
...
<Slave 1>
Divinity Points: 13,140
<Slave 2>
Divinity Points: 12,980
<Slave 3>
Divinity Points: 24,010
<Slave 4>
Divinity Points: 23,605
...
As soon as the notifications appeared above their heads, Rex’s eyes bulged in absolute shock. Since the inhabitants of the Grey Realm had a fraction of divinity in them—due to the mutation done by the three Divine Sources to the realm’s air, he was already expecting a lot.
Each one of these slaves was engraved with a portion of his strength.
Not a lot, but enough to put them around the eighth-rank realm.
For the Grey Realm, that level of power is already more than enough; these slaves were practically close to invincible in that realm. But since they couldn’t kill freely, he was expecting each one to have around three to four thousand divinity points in them.
It would mean they needed to kill about thirty to fifty thousand people in that realm.
Only the strong ones, he’d noticed, might carry a single divinity point—while the rest would have even less than that. Fractions. But no. Each one held over ten thousand. Two of them had amassed more than twenty thousand, which was incredible.
Rex only needed ten thousand to complete the sudden quest, and this surpassed that goal immensely.
"Lilliana... How many did you kill exactly?" He asked with a shaky voice. "This is too much."
"Hmm?" Lilliana tilted her head and then tapped on her chin with her index finger in deep thought. "I wasn’t sure how many you needed, so I went on a killing spree with them. And to be on the safe side, we had about a million people put to death."
Almost as soon as she said that, Rex choked on his own saliva.
Initially, he was planning to kill a few kingdoms, with one of them being a big kingdom.
Even that might be too much for him to do.
Hearing that Lilliana had killed more than a million caught him by surprise.
"Aren’t you going a bit too far?" Davina patted Rex’s back as she stared at her big sister in disbelief. She never knew that Lilliana was capable of being such a cold-blooded leader. "A million people are more than a big chunk of the population, no?"
"Don’t worry." Lilliana shook her hand and smiled sheepishly. "I spread the killings. I’m sure the High Lord or his people wouldn’t even notice."
"Since you killed a million," Rex cleared his throat and then lifted his gaze again. "That changed things. This is too little if you really killed a million people. What exactly happened?"
If each person has a fraction of divinity, then the four slaves should’ve been able to amass at least one hundred thousand divinity points. Only tens of thousands seemed to be too low for slaughtering more than a million people.
"I have no idea either," Lilliana shook her head, oblivious to the reason. "Some didn’t yield divinity."
System, any explanation?
<Notice: the Divine Tainting skill is not a perfect skill. Mastery over the heresy mark is paramount in order to absorb divinity points from others. For it to have a one hundred percent success rate with each kill, the user would need to get accustomed to making the heresy mark.>
I guess that explains things... But wait, doesn’t that also mean—?
An entire day passed.
Just as the System explained, his mastery over the Divine Tainting skill was pitiful.
Based on the information that was drilled into his mind—when he learned the skill, all he needed to do was complete the heresy mark to absorb the divinity points that the slave of the mark amassed. In order for him to do that, he needed to bite them and infuse his energy into the heresy mark.
He thought it would take a second or a minute at most, but each heresy mark took hours.
It took him a long time to absorb the divinity points.
And more importantly, what he was most afraid of happened.
Because of his poor mastery of the Divine Tainting skill, a lot of divinity points were wasted in the process. If the absorption was perfect, he should gain almost eighty thousand divinity points from these four slaves.
Having that much would propel him above even the likes of Vadyn.
Rex would be exhilarated if that were the case.
But it wasn’t the case.
<Divinity Points: 11,730 / 10,000>
<Sudden Quest completed!>
<Notice: the rewards are being calculated.>
"Tch," Rex clicked his tongue in displeasure at the sight of the notifications. "Just eleven thousand from all four slaves? I lost close to ninety percent of the divinity points—they amassed. No matter, at least I completed the sudden quest."
Losing that many divinity points stings, but Rex wasn’t going to complain.
Rex looked down at the four corpses sprawled before the bed.
After having their heresy marks completed, their bodies lay flat and dry on the floor.
It seemed the divinity in them was attached to their life force, so once they lost it, this happened.
Rex knelt and, out of pity and gratitude for their sacrifice, he gathered the first corpse—and crushed it between his palms. Bone and dried flesh compacted with the sound of grinding stone. And then he did the same thing to the other three.
Once he was finished, four dark balls rested in his hands, still warm with the ghost of body heat.
He opened his mouth wide, exposing the sharp canines, and then devoured all four dark balls.
And the taste that touched his taste buds was unlike any flesh he had consumed before.
Not savory or sweet, it was salty like beef jerky. One of the most beloved rations he had gnawed through during his military years. Rex chewed and swallowed before sitting back down on the bed, both of his eyes closed to enjoy the taste.
Once he was done, his eyes focused again.
Gathering ten thousand divinity points, it’s not so that he could achieve a breakthrough.
It was for something more immediately necessary—the Pure God Sense skill.
Rex needed to sense immortal energy to read the strength of those around him without relying on the System. He needed this before the banquet. Many of the Overseer’s people would be there—powerful people, and he could not afford to walk in blind.
Especially since Davina and Lilliana would be with him, and they also can’t sense immortal energy.
Scanning overwhelmingly stronger entities with the System would only backfire.
So, he can’t rely on it.
A trained sense, on the other hand, was different and safer to use.
Rex expanded his senses; the room unfolded in his mind. He pushed further, letting his awareness fill every corner, and then he focused. The System had told him—it would take training. Proper training for him to utilize the Pure God Sense skill properly.
But ten thousand divinity points tilted the scales.
And he felt the difference immediately.
Just with a sharp focus, he could tear through a layer in the air and tap into something deeper.
Inside was an intense distortion—subtle ripples like heat rising off sun-scorched stone.
And beneath those ripples was a crackling.
Something he had never perceived before, a layer of reality that had always been present—but invisible to his senses. His lips curled into a smile. "Immortal energy..."