Leveling through Lust

The sudden absence of the System was the single most unsettling thing I had felt in my life.

I had long tried to prepare myself for the possibility, since the day I realized the System wasn’t exactly a benevolent force, but a tool. Not to mention, as I deepened my understanding of Soul Spaces, I could easily give others levels, or take them away.

It wasn’t unexpected for the Eternals to have a similar method.

Still, I was glad that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Thanks to the Divine Spark I had absorbed, I didn’t find myself in that accursed state of idiocy, maintaining a little power — but even the lack of numerical measurement of my strength was unsettling.

My best guess was, currently, I could barely rival the state I was at level ten with my relatively overpowered stats, or a more ordinary fifteen level.

But, there was one great difference. I had no HP, which meant no convenient energy automatically healing my wounds, or mana I could simply use to cast the spell.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the spells I had cast earlier survived, I wouldn’t even have the shield against necrotic energy, and would die to my own spell.

Or worse, get discovered by him immediately.

I first turn inward, getting a glimpse of my own soul space, hoping that it would allow me to find a block, but I failed. Everything was perfectly normal and stable, including the connection. However, there was no flow from the connections. They were dry like a river during a drought.

It took only a second. With the two seconds, I wasted trying to process the shock, I still had twenty-two seconds for my trap to activate completely.

Unless it was discovered, of course.

I first decided to look around, trying to get a better understanding of the trick, as I didn’t have the ability to do anything at the moment in any case.

The rest of the situation was different than I expected. Some parts, like the instant death of the warriors, were not surprising. With the system gone, and without Divine Spark to empower them, they didn’t even last a second with the necrotic energy filling the space.

Some aspects, however, were different than I expected. The ward I had created to radiate necrotic energy was destroyed, and while the elemental still moved toward the ward, it did so with a much slower speed, showing signs of dispersion.

I realized the reason when I noticed the weapons of the soldiers collapsing into a pile of rust, losing their integrity as the mana embedded went wild.

It wasn’t hard to notice their commonality. Each of those was empowered by the gems, which stopped as soon as the system was gone.

Looking back, it wasn’t particularly shocking, whether in terms of infinite mana generation.

Or the name…

I just didn’t have time to examine them in my busy schedule, always chasing something else.

I noticed the corrupted angel starting to fly even as he shouted. “Your fate would be legendary,” he declared, his voice still radiating the same type of energy, but lacking the earlier intensity.

I tensed as I watched him teleport, ready to burst into action, even though the speed he was teleporting gave me hope. Rather than disappearing in an instant, it took him five seconds to step into the Aether.

Showing that, unlike my dear headmistress, he actually had access to the System, and was empowered by it considerably. A good thing to learn, but not entirely amazing, as even if he was just as strong as her, it would mean he could easily rival my overpowered state of level thirty.

Not something I even hope to delay.

If I had access to my mana, I could try to pull a trick with his Divine Spark, which was clearly not fully absorbed yet, but to do that instantly required a lot of mana.

Mana that I lacked, and while I had some tricks that I could use, none of it was instant without my own mana as a primer.

Or the assistance of my skills to multiply my capabilities significantly.

I just hoped that whatever he wanted to learn was more important than his immediate need for revenge, at least enough to delay him for a quarter of a minute, enough for my last desperate trick to work.

I had no hope of survival if that trick failed as well.

I waited anxiously for him to appear. If he appeared next to my ward rather than me, I was dead. If he appeared next to me, I had a slight chance of survival.

Yet, when he appeared, I met with an unexpected challenge.

Holding back my laughter.

He burst into existence, with an aura of destruction that was crackling on the surface of his wings. His appearance was the single scariest thing I had seen in my life, especially in my powerless state, but the location of his appearance was enough to turn that into a ridiculous excess.

He didn’t appear next to me, nor did he appear next to my ward. He didn’t even appear next to the air elemental, which was halfway into dispersing.

No, he appeared next to the bones I had conjured in a desperate gambit, radiating necrotic energy as they lay on the floor, motionless since I didn’t even bother adding a movement charm, broken after falling down from the back of the elemental as it halfway dispersed.

What a ridiculous thing to save my life, I thought mockingly even as he opened his mouth. “You have no idea just how many plans you have ruined, you worthless bag of bones,” he growled as he raised his hand, his anger radiating from the energy he gathered.

And his unique brand of fiery energy prepared to destroy the bones, I was glad that I wasn’t trying to buy my life with my secrets, certainly not after angering him that much.

I wasn’t surprised by such an impulsive decision, as I had long realized Divine Spark was inherently linked to mood and mental state. And, his own brand of crimson energy certainly contained a lot of anger and other dark emotions.

Still, it didn’t make the sudden explosion of dust that filled the area any less chilling. Just one little mistake, and I was dead.

Not that I was still saved, of course. There were still ten seconds for my trap to activate, which was more than enough for him to discover and kill me.

Luckily, rather than searching, he stood still, his wings parted. His wings slowly lost their color, turning into a pristine white — but even at a distance, I could see that it was the effect of some kind of disguise spell similar to Mariel using Darkness Spark rather than a genuine transformation.

Whatever his position was, he was clearly trying to keep that red energy hidden from the rest of the Eternals.

Still, it didn’t make his transformation from a monstrous corrupt being to a glowing holy angel, radiating trust and kindness, any less shocking.

Yet, lost in his transformation, he noticed the flare of my ward too late, and an elemental arrow, a dangerous mixture of all four, exploded from my ward, toward the sky, and slammed against the ward.

Mixing elements was a recipe for chaos. It only worked because of the Tantric spark I mixed, keeping the incredible mixture stable for a moment, the explosion mixing into a ward, corrupting its structure.

Turning it into the greatest spectacle.

“No!” he shouted, but I didn’t have time to enjoy his fear and shock, because I noticed the impact was worse than I had planned. All along the border that was initially covered by the ward, the space was rending in a familiar manner.

I either miscalculated the impact of Tantric on the outer bounds of the system, or it somehow interacted with whatever he had done with the Aether. Or maybe, whatever that goblet had impacted the border already, and my spell only compounded the effect.

Either way, I had another beautiful problem to face, and do so without the System, as the connection was still cut.

Busy with my own thoughts, I didn’t even have time to enjoy the sudden horrible position my enemy had found himself in as he got slammed in the back by a true air elemental as he tried to escape.

To complete the irony, the true elemental was possessing the half-dispersed remains of my elemental mount.

Yet, I had other problems, like rapidly collapsing space as the elementals started fighting against each other. But before I could do anything, I found myself floating in an indescribable emptiness, even more, chaotic than the Aether Dimension.

I could still see the border of the material plane, marking the influence area of the System, recovering rapidly despite the elemental invasion.

There was only one problem.

I was outside of the dimensional barrier.

[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]