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Chapter 623: Alternative Paths

Is there really not a problem with teaching her how to use the shadows like we do? Petra asked, feeling as if it could create issues for them in the future. I thought our whole thing was remaining discrete. Dana Jafer is by no means discrete in how she handles business.

Thelsa gave a small chuckle as she listened to Petra’s complaint, willing herself to appear in the room next to the little demoness. “It’ll be fine. If anything, it’s better for her to have that power as well. Better for us, I mean.”

“And how do you figure that?” Petra asked, puffing her cheeks out indignantly.

“As long as she keeps a high profile, and people understand how she uses her power, they will associate any information that leaks about us with her. Because she wields a ‘unique’ shadow energy, she will gain the credit if we have to act more openly in the future.”

“You know…” Petra glanced towards Thelsa. “I think it’d be nice for us to get acknowledgement for our actions every now and then, too. Nobody wants to just live in the shadows forever. And this is coming from the Demigoddess of Shadows!”

Thelsa simply smiled, reaching out to hold Petra in a gentle embrace. “I know, Petra. I’m working on it. Soon, you should be able to stand tall and proud as the daughter of Ashley. I just want to make sure that the Shadow Saint is left in the darkness. Once I can be sure of that, you can have a more permanent identity.”

Petra let out a small sigh, nodding her head. “I know. Frankly, I think you’re paranoid, but I get it. People don’t tend to enjoy one person having too much power. And us… well… if those people knew how many we had at our disposal, they’d burst a blood vessel.” She gave a somewhat wry smile as she said that, earning a chuckle from Thelsa.

“Right? Besides, I feel like I can help people so much more without the recognition. When everyone knows about you, they’re more likely to blame you for things going wrong. For people like me… fame isn’t really a good thing. That’s why I don’t mind teaching the Keeper’s servant, so that she can act as my shield.”

Tsubaki closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for what they were about to do. She had modified one of the spells in her grimoire to become a cold spell instead of a pure mana attack. Now, they would have to actually test it on a living swarm. This would be their first chance to see how the swarms responded to danger.

Tsubaki was currently sitting on the top of a large Metong ship, gazing out at the swarm they had located with Accalia’s assistance. Her description had been rather apt. From Tsubaki’s viewpoint, the swarm appeared to simply be a slowly-drifting cloud of fire. If not for its irregular shape, it could even be mistaken for a small star.

The sheer scale of the enemy did indeed unnerve the kitsune, who was prepared to flee at the first sign that the swarm had launched an attack. Have you finished yet? She muttered towards James, who was standing next to her in his smaller form.

I’m sorry, it’s a bit taxing to view millions of potential timelines and see through the minute details to find the truth hidden within the possibilities. He responded, clearly frustrated with his own task. As the new energy he acquired could be used to glance into the possible future, he was currently observing the situation as it would occur after she launched her spell.

Tsubaki chose to not push him, as an angered man with his level of power was not something she needed to witness. Thankfully, he didn’t take much longer.

Cold spells are effective, but it’s tricky. Once you reduce the body temperature of a solar sprite- yes, that’s what I’m calling them- by a certain amount, they are snuffed out. But the surrounding sprites will be constantly radiating heat, so you have to hit a large number of them at once, or their shared heat will counteract your spell.

Tsubaki furrowed her brows, as this practically guaranteed that she wouldn’t be able to kill the swarm with her spell. It was a chain-effect spell, but that meant that it had to take time to connect from one target to another. What about a direct spirit attack?

James grimaced, before letting out an inaudible sigh and beginning to tap into his newfound energy once again. Clearly, the futures he had foreseen previously were only in the event that Tsubaki used her cold spell. Now that she wanted to try something different, those futures had become invalid.

The Metong ship was in a controlled course, remaining a set distance from the cloud and matching their speed. Thankfully, they were quite far from any solar systems, so there was little risk of the swarm suddenly becoming active.

It was roughly half an hour later when James once again let his hand drop, this time seeming much more weary than before. If you use that item… it can work. But you have to combine it with an illusion. Whenever the swarm senses itself being attacked, it goes all out to defend. With the energy that I have left right now, I can’t protect the ship if that happens.

Tsubaki raised an eyebrow in alarm, glancing towards James. She had not told him about the Illusion domain, and was planning to save it as an emergency tactic. However, she had also been prepared to use it if the situation appeared as though she could not destroy the swarm otherwise. It seemed like James had looked into a future where she had made that decision.

I understand. She nodded, slowly standing up and making another prayer. Oh, Goddess of Death, Lady Irena, hear me.

Here you go. Irena’s voice responded a brief moment later, and Tsubaki could feel a metalling pen landing in her hand.

But… but I hadn’t even made my request yet. Tsubaki looked at the pen, feeling a slight sense of loss. Her moment of dramatic build-up had been cut short.

…I could take it back and let you ask properly? There was an awkward tone to Irena’s voice, as if she was realizing her mistake.

No, no, it’s fine. I don’t want to trouble you that much. Thank you for lending me your artifact. Tsubaki shook her head, feeling the energy reserves within the pen. It seemed as though Irena had kept it fully charged, either charging it for this event or simply having it that way as standard.

Holding the pen up, she drew a large circle, making sure that it encompassed the entire swarm within her field of view. Afterwards, she began drawing runes, pulling from her memories of reading the most advanced magic of Fyor.

‘Proceed forward until finding heat in excess of one thousand degrees, identified as target source. Proceed towards target source until contact with living creature, identified as initial target. Consume spiritual energy from initial target to activate following effect. Locate living creatures with matching energy pattern as initial target, identified as secondary targets. Proceed towards secondary targets until contact. Consume spiritual energy from secondary target to repeat effect.`

In order to write the spell, Tsubaki had to draw over fifty runes inside of the circle, making sure not to let herself escape its bounds. Once she was done, she did not relax. Instead, she held the ability in place while calling on her divinity. My Keeper, I require the power of illusions.

With the request made, Tsubaki could feel a new realm of power opening up to her. Although she regularly tapped into the illusionary power to hide the traces of the Keeper’s domains within her divine energy, that was the full extent of what she had ‘permission’ for. Something like what she was doing now required far more energy, and thus required explicit permission.

Once she had it, her hand waved, covering the runes in a layer of illusion that made them disappear. Then she waved her hand again, this time dispelling the circle that was containing her spell. Although the effect of the spell was now invisible, she could feel it rushing forward, her divinity attached to it.

There was not so much as a stir when the spell honed in on the swarm, striking one of the miniature flaming sprites. However, Tsubaki could feel her divinity rapidly being spent, eyes going wide at the cost. She had attached a very simple, yet powerful effect to the illusion. The same power that she had seen the Keeper use previously.

Whenever a sprite was struck by the spell, an illusory copy of it was produced. However, this copy had a slightly altered energy signature, in order for the spell to not double back and attack the same sprite multiple times. While this small disturbance wasn’t enough to enrage the swarm, it was enough to cause confusion.

The cloud of fire seemed to shudder, shifting back and forth around the affected region. With each sprite that was slain, the drain on Tsubaki’s energy increased more and more. The golden light in her eyes flickered, and then went dim. She fell to her knees as the entire swarm was gradually consumed, immediately dismissing the illusion. She couldn’t risk leaving it active even a moment longer, or else her entire existence could fade away.

Naturally, James could feel how weak Tsubaki had become, and knew that she would not be able to recover soon enough to deal with the rest of the swarms plaguing this galaxy. They would need to discover another means to deal with the problem, one that did not require the use of Tsubaki’s divine energy.

Dana stood at the valley that had become her personal slaughterhouse. In one hand, she held a catalogue purchased from Deckan, detailing the different types of cards and which creatures they could be found from. With the other hand, she slapped against monster carcasses as they appeared, turning them into cards.

There were many times when she would be unlucky and receive a repeated card, but there was little that she could do about that. While she could copy cards that she had already found, she could not choose which creatures dropped which cards.

“Why is a third tier darkness card so hard to find?” She muttered to herself, seeing that there were six different breeds of monsters that provided the card. Unfortunately, she had slaughtered dozens of those monsters without the darkness card dropping. “I mean, I get that the drop rate is fairly low, but this is a tad ridiculous?”

In order to save on her expenditure, Dana only kept one of each ‘corpse’ card that dropped, converting the rest back into the World’s Shadow and reabsorbing it. Otherwise, it was unlikely that she would have been able to go on like this for as long as she did.

After several hours of constant grinding, she had long since finished the first and second tier of cards, and was over halfway done with the third tier. Unfortunately, there was still much of the fourth tier that was not yet documented, so Dana would have to settle with the first three for now. After that, she could return to her plan of creating an actual monster army.

As she thought about that, she felt Hollevin dying within his training simulation. Again… This was his fifteenth death in the last hour, making Dana question if she had perhaps set the difficulty too high. In order to investigate if she needed to adjust his training regiment, she spied on how he handled himself. What she saw made her eye twitch repeatedly.

Hollevin’s first action when he appeared was not to lay warding spells against the monsters, or large attacks that could wipe out entire groups. Instead, he cast self-buffing spells to enhance his physical body. Once that was done, he used another spell to add bladed tips to both edges of his staff.

At this point, the monsters were already nearly upon him, and he walked forward to meet them. His body spun as he twirled the staff, slicing into the shadow monsters with his enhanced agility and strength. Whenever he had a moment to breathe, he would fire off a quick attack spell, a beam of light that pierced through a monster in his path.

Okay, but why is he fighting in melee?! He’s a mage, for crying out loud! Dana felt as if Hollevin’s battle tactics had steered far outside of the realm of a mage, despite the fact that he was only able to achieve this result with magic. That was when she noticed something interesting.

Whenever his staff struck the ground, or the air just above his head, it would leave a black mark. As the world was one of shadows, this mark was almost impossible to notice before it faded away. But once Dana noticed it, and began tracking the marks as he made them, she realized what he was doing.

Five minutes later when Hollevin died yet again, she did not feel disappointed. Instead, she watched eagerly as he performed another run with a similar tactic. His level as a warrior naturally rose every time he fought in this manner, so he was becoming more and more adept as time went on. This time, he lasted seven minutes. And after that, ten minutes.

It was at the ten minute mark when Hollevin struck the last mark on the ground, taking three quick steps back. Immediately, a black cube arose from the ground, trapping a majority of the monsters inside of it. This cube briefly shuddered, before falling apart. When it did, the numerous monsters inside appeared either dead or critically injured, whereas those that were not within the cube were extremely few in numbers.

That was Hollevin’s battle tactic, to draw a physical diagram for a second tier spell using his own mana and the blood of the beasts he was fighting. Dana thought it was rather brilliant, if not entirely reckless, but she was also disappointed. After all, such a tactic could work on second tier spells, but not third or fourth tier.

The fact that he needed to resort to such a trick meant that he could not easily perform those spells while caught in a chaotic melee. While he could imagine the diagram to such a detailed degree as to let him draw it with small strokes over ten minutes, he was not able to release the mana to activate it with the same intensity. In this sense, he had failed as a mage.

If he did not take special measures to help him cast higher tier magic, then it was unlikely he’d be able to handle the trials she gave him next.