Skullius sockets flared wildly as his soul returned into his body.
He looked around and found no one.
He clacked his teeth.
'Damn! She escaped with the answers again,' he thought, displeased.
That was some juicy stuff.
The criticisms surrounding the Purity weren't unwarranted after all.
There was some funny business with the Deities after all!
'One Deity, huh?' Skullius thought. This did make him nervous.
Stand-ins or not, this wasn't good news right?
That last statement from Somanda also got Skullius jittery.
"His little servant on Aigas? The only person I can think of is..."
The Penetrator recalled to when he had encountered a man with the strongest power of undeath he had ever felt. For a human that was.
That masked man he met in the cavern that time ago.
Didn't he die though?
Who knew?
Skullius then turned to the distance and rushed towards it, kneeling over Yuyui's body.
She wasn't screaming in pain anymore and was comfortably lying down on the snow in a state of unconsciousness. Hopefully this was the same for Silrat and Kenno.
"Thank goodness Serenity showed up when she did," Skullius said before caressing Yuyui's green hair with a soft glint.
His socket flames flickered a bit as he became self conscious, pulled back his bony hand and hurried to stand up, awkwardly looking left and right.
"Right. I need to get rid of the curses. I wonder how the Grace of the Sky Lady's Hand will handle my collection of plagues now," Skullius said while consulting with the guidance field to hear the verdict.
With the evolution of the curses, there was bound to be more costs involved with purging each of them now.
[Processing...]
[The Divine energy around you is only capable of removing one curse or plague within you with absolute certainty. The remaining energy may not completely purge any of the other curses completely]
"Hmmm. Is that so?" Skullius said while scratching his chin. "That's more generous than I thought."
There really was a massive amount of energy in this necklace.
First, Skullius decided to check what the evolved versions of all his curses and plagues could do now.
The Doom Factors didn't change much.
Doom Factor 1 which wasn't a threat for him before, now demanded 50,000 units of mana every two days to stay away, quite an improvement on the 3000.
This would have been a problem for him before his adventure to the Temple of Unlusted Tears but now, since these 50,000 units were demanded in the form of basic mana, Doom Factor 1 still wasn't a problem for him.
Doom Factor 2 had a rather concerning change, one that wasn't quite clear in wording. It didn't affect the time he had left but there was a vague tag.
<Progressive Soul Confusion>
At the end of the stated time for Doom Factor 2, if Skullius hadn't reclaimed his soul, he was supposed to go mad. This was added on top of it. Therefore, as unclear as it was, without any option for elaboration, Skullius decided to keenly keep his awareness up.
The ones with the most problematic upgrades for him were his atrocious luck and UNCoddled.
His atrocious luck or Compromised luck, as the guidance field put it, was now...
~~~
Luck : Atrociously Horrendous?
~~~
This was its upgrade, which didn't sit right with Skullius.
What was worse than atrocious luck? Atrociously Horrendous luck!
'Even then there's still that question mark. Does it mean this... power dating back to my past life, as Serenity said, is still going to be interfering?' Skullius thought.
Another mystery.
UNCoddled was the worst of all.
Apparently, it decided that a name change would be cool too.
~~~
[Lord of Lonesome Sorrows]
You are a sentimental wanderer condemned to walk within empty lands. Your mere presence incites death to the weakest and invites the melting of the soul to the strong. Enemies and allies alike detest your shadow and flee your side, the souls of those you kill by your lonesome march becoming a fuel for the one pulling your strings.
~~~
Perhaps because this was the only actual curse Skullius had, it had been granted the most immense powers after evolution. Or perhaps it was because it didn't have any effect that warranted Serenity's direct intervention like Doom Factor 2.
"This is too much. I can't survive with that hanging around me," Skullius said. UNCoddled was a nightmare on its own. This upgraded version...
It had to go.
Thankfully, the necklace had enough juice for it.
"Purge Lord of Lonesome Sorrows," Skullius said with confidence.
[You have selected 'Lord of Lonesome Sorrows' as the target to be purged]
[Processing...]
Finally, this menacing curse was done for.
With this, he wouldn't have to worry about having people melt when he interacted with them.
There was no longer a need to keep Tie of Exchanges afloat just to keep friends alive. Skullius knew Yuyui would be happy about it.
The dangers of erecting Tie of Exchanges were noted with this one event as now, Skullius could tell other beings could use his connection to others for their own benefit.
'I honestly didn't see that coming. Then again, Sause managed to protect himself somehow,' Skullius thought.
Speaking of the giant...
"That one notification that showed..." Skullius scrolled through his guidance field and found the notification he was looking for.
[The remnants of nourishment to your soul by a Mythical grade are erased...]
This notification had showed after the string of the ones representing evolutions of his curses and plagues.
'This confused me at first but.. Tsk. Of course my previous rank of guidance field couldn't register it before. This was probably the lingering effects of that tool Sause used when I was evolving, when he merged the WILLS of Fulgardt with my soul. I wonder what effects it had on me. Did it affect my powers? My luck?' Skullius thought.
He would know soon enough since the effects were gone.
As he was thinking of these things...
[The curse 'Lord of Lonesome Sorrows' has been purged]
"..."
Skullius looked at this notification without shifting his gaze.
It was done.
Within the depths of his soul, he felt a relieving sense of freedom as a staggering amount of power from the necklace shrieked around him, burning away an intangible evil.
"Ah...." Skullius revelled in the feeling.
The power that transcended DIVINITY.
The power of a Deity.
It was blissful.
The Penetrator wished he could smile just about now.
"Hehehehe!" he laughed as he looked at the notification of a huge victory once more.
Be gone you pain in the flesh!
But Skullius wasn't done.
"For the next target, even if it won't get rid of it, this should work right? I choose Compromised luck," he said.
Skullius couldn't imagine how terrible instances of atrociously horrendous luck could be like. Thankfully, an unfortunate circumstance hadn't intervened to cut off his moment of triumph against UNCoddled as it was.
[Warning! There is insufficient energy left within 'Grace of the Sky Lady's Hand' to fully purge 'Compromised Luck']
"I get it," Skullius said. "Do it."
[Processing...]
A short, expectant wait later...
[The plague 'Compromised luck' has been partially purged. Its effects have been subdued]
"I thought as much," Skullius said while checking his status.
~~~
[Luck : Atrocious?]
~~~
"Hahahahahaha!" Skullius laughed hard. "Welcome back my bro."
It was funny. He was back to the usual portions of bad luck but only for a little while.
Soon, when he began his operations, he would collect enough artefacts like the necklace to purge all of his curses and plagues. That wasn't a distant goal.
Skullius' sockets flared excitedly.
One victory down.
Now it was time for another.
The biggest one.
The main event.
The time seemed perfect.
15 days had passed since the last time he used [Bringer of All] and after a quick check with the skill, he found that he was hours late to celebrate it coming off cooldown!
It was that time again!
Thankfully, Skullius had grabbed the thing he needed – his Apostle – before he and Yuyui had left the mansion. To successfully reset the cooldown of [Depths of the Core], the skill that allowed him to improve the properties of his mana core, he needed the variation of power, Ogwulf the Limitless, which would allow him to get the effects of Ferex's flaw. The RESET.
Naturally, if he was to do this, Skullius needed something to fight in order to trigger the RESET, otherwise after the five minutes were over, he would simply split back into himself and Ferex.
A waste of the skill after half a month of waiting.
A potential problem was that Ferex could be RESET. All his new skills, and personality traits could be wiped out if Skullius messed up.
The Penetrator wouldn't allow that to happen. If he could dictate the RESET, like he did before as Ferex's master, despite the risk of bringing the BoneTender into existence, they would be home free.
Hopefully his atrocious luck didn't have something to say about it.
Skullius carried Yuyui and began the march to look for a powerful beast or beasts to battle.
It wasn't easy.
There wasn't a Cluster or anything in sight. He had scouted the area before, so he should know.
Bandits would fit the criterion for what he needed but...
Shuff! Shuff! Shuff!
Skullius heard noise in the distance after travelling away from where he had been nesting.
It wasn't bandits unfortunately but it was the next best thing.
Three carriages rushed up the pathway to a distant settlement, several Knights on horseback escorting them.
With Skullius' [Epiphany] enhanced [Greater Mana Crafter], the Penetrator managed to gauge how strong these Knights were. One of them was a Master Stage expert while the others were all at the peak of Advancement Stage!
"Good! That's good!" Skullius said with a callous excitement.
This would do.
He expelled Ferex from his storage ring and paid the full price for [Bringer of All].
5000 Null Life Essence points and 5000 units of mana!
What freedom!
What could be better than a bloodbath shortly after ridding yourself of a troublesome curse?!
---
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