Carlos

  Carlos Gutierre, the Divine Bulwark, watched as five of his subordinate A ranks entered through the portal the Master of the Eternal Forge had just strengthened to God rank, and then he felt his bonds to them break as they were all instantly killed. The energy of a curse emanated out from the portal, and he watched in horror as the souls of two more of his subordinates, one the great-grandchild of one of the A ranks and the other the distant cousin of one of the others, had their souls burnt to a crisp before he could do anything.

  “Sophia, go check on the rules of how that curse functions.” The Master of the Eternal Forge gave Carlos’s daughter, who he’d had back when he was a C rank and who had risen through the ranks with him before they both ascended, the order. Then he and Carlos rushed through the portal.

  What they found, however, wasn’t an enemy. There were no soul lords waiting to fight them, no dragons attempting to run away. In fact, other than the five dead A ranks, each with a large bullet in their hearts, there were no cultivators or monsters within the range of Carlos’s senses. And this didn’t change even after they’d looked over the entire Medium size universe.

  The United Federation of Planets had seemingly known they’d be coming and had evacuated even all the original lifeforms. Then someone, presumably one of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception’s clones, had ambushed their A ranks with cursed sniper fire from over a galaxy away and fled to another universe.

  His side had gained a new Medium size universe, one with all of its most valuable resources picked clean, and the enemy in turn had killed five of their limited number of A ranks.

  * * *

  Sophia

  Living without System access was more troublesome than Sophia, the Wind Runner, had thought it would be.

  Sure, there was bond communication, but each of the Primordial Human Gods only had a limited number of bonded priests, and their communication range, while large, couldn’t compare to the size of the Prime Material.

  Meanwhile, she was a messenger god, a master of wind Laws and a holder of The Messenger divine role, so she was tasked with running around the universe to provide communication until the Master of the Eternal Forge or someone else actually did the work to set up a new long distance transmission method. And it sucked.

  What sucked more, however, was how it also made her vulnerable, something she only realized as five of the contracts she’d signed with mortals over the last several million years broke, with her soul somehow thinking she was responsible.

  The Primordial Sovereign was in his original universe, the God of War was guarding the Endless Battlefield, and the Lord of Twilight Flame and Lady of Hellwater were trapped in the Heavenly Soul Universe, more than halving the combat power of the Primordial Humans. Then, with the Master of the Eternal Forge and her father entering another of the United Federation of Planets’ universes, and needing two more gods to guard the entrance so they couldn’t be trapped like the divine twins, this left her an easy target.

  Right after the punishment from the broken oaths started to hit, forcing her to pour about 40% of her concentration into stopping her own soul from killing her, she was suddenly trapped in a large sealed area, and she quickly found herself in weapon-to-weapon combat with the Heavenly Spark Soul King, the man in the seal with her and launching himself at her with his sword.

  At the same time, some minor plagues began to affect her and runes started to appear inside the sealed area, forming a suppressive array that weakened her further.

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  Most challenging of all, however, was the curse she was suddenly hit with.

  Someone, presumably the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, had killed three of her five A rank priests and burned their souls and divine power, divine power Sophia herself had given them and that no one else should have been able to control, to create a curse specifically designed to target her, and it was a powerful one.

  It couldn’t kill her directly—the power of all ascended souls were of a much higher quality than those of mortals—but it did disrupt her divine power, which in turn disrupted her skills, and this was bad when what seemed like a Supreme grade A rank bastard sword was being thrust at her heart by a being with a Strength stat over a dozen times greater than her own.

  By some miracle, she managed to move slightly out of the way of the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s blade, the sword only stabbing into her left lung, but then, as an additional curse from the blade strengthened the original curse, a God rank flying knife appeared from seemingly nowhere and stabbed into the back of her head, poisoning her and becoming an extra thing she had to worry about.

  Extracting the knife as she moved as fast as she could away from the Heavenly Spark Soul King in the confined area, she managed to fight for another ten seconds, an impressive feat given the combat was moving at far, far beyond normal superhuman speeds, but then, unable to fight the curses, poison, and her own soul off any longer, she grew weak, and the last thing in her eyes was the Mistress of Oaths and Deception’s smiling face as she appeared herself and borrowed her husband’s sword to cut off Sophia’s head.

  * * *

  Bellessia

  “The five A ranks killed in the Endless Light Universe had their souls used in a bloodline curse, everyone within five generations of them killed even with the curse energy having to move between universes. Then, before my father and the Master of the Eternal Forge returned from their exploration, 29 of our A rank priests were killed, all seemingly with the same cursed weapon, their close families dying as well.”

  The Wind Runner knelt down before Bellessia’s eldest brother, fear and nervousness filling her aura, but the God of War just chuckled.

  “They’re trying to reduce our manpower and shake more of our support before the artificial deadline they created next year, but they don’t seem to understand the timescale we work on, nor the true nature of our faith farms.”

  He used his aura to raise the Wind Runner to her feet. “Sophia, go tell my father of the situation and bring back any orders he has.”

  “Yes, sir.” The Wind Runner saluted, fear still present in her aura, and then she flew away at about a fourth of her max speed.

  “Bell, what do you think the United Federation of Planets is planning?”

  Bellessia looked down at the battlefield below them, empty of undead for the first time since she could remember, and then back to her brother across the floating round table. “The same as always. Stay in the shadows and fight using guerrilla warfare.

  “If I were them, I’d lower our number of A ranks now, steal what resources they can get their hands on, and avoid any direct confrontations. Then, when I was powerful enough, I’d start aiming for our weaker gods, hoping to gain power with each kill, and probably also try and incite the other factions of the Prime Material to fight us as well.

  “It’s hard to know any other specifics without having a good idea of their current powers, but they seem to also want to gather as much faith energy as they can, and that is definitely working.”

  The God of War nodded in acknowledgment and then looked at the other five gods around the table. “Does anyone else have any insights?”

  “They had access to the Radiant Behemoth’s skeleton while the Heavenly Spark Soul King has an advancement of the Genetic Thief bloodline.” Zoriandor, Master of Dextrous Hands, an old god of weaving descended from one of Bellessia’s multiple long-dead siblings unable to achieve divinity, spoke up. “So, we can assume he, his wife, and likely the dragon, the reincarnated swordsman, and Bellessia’s other revived child have the Power of Divinity racial ability.

  “Faith energy can make them directly stronger, not just empower their curses, so there are more immediate reasons for them to gather it.”

  “They will also probably try and internally divide us.” The God of War’s middle child, Ularia, the Lady of the Eternal Flame, nervously tapped her right index finger on the table. “While we all have a contract with grandfather, he’s not in the Prime Material and the Mistress of Oaths and Deception is an unparalleled expert at contract magic, almost certainly able to break that contract without any harm to the god she does it for.

  “And, with us unable to access the System right now due to the undead having retreated after the United Federation of Planets' attack on them, we wouldn’t know if this happened until grandfather sent word.

  “They did send all of our forces individual surrender offers after all, and, no disrespect to father and Aunt Bellessia, but most of us have no direct conflict with the United Federation of Planets.”

  “Hmm.” For the first time in as long as Bellessia could remember, anger entered into her eldest brother’s aura. “That probably is a goal of theirs, but woe be to anyone who actually takes up their offer.”