Death Ascension - Chapter 84

Deon fished a small mana stone from the pouch hidden within his tattered armor and placed it on the space ring. When the familiar iridescent smoke swirled on top and formed a black hole, Deon moved his fist forward.

Fwooooph!

The black hole sucked the minibus-sized egg as if distorting space and a moment later, any sign of the dragon egg’s existence was erased save for the shining purple panel that popped up after it was absorbed into the national treasure-grade artifact.

Ping!

<System Notification: Player Deon has obtained a Styrmir dragon egg.>

Ping!

<System Notification: Player Mikael has received one ‘Damaged dragon heart’ and 100 Karma points from Divine-grade spirit “Skaldr”>

<Total Karma points: 0 KP>

But to Mikael’s surprise, the series of notifications didn’t end there!

Ping!

<Player Mikael has reached the required Karma points for the Ghost class!>

<Player Mikael’s class is changed from ‘Poltergeist’ to ‘Ghost’>

<Ghost’s innate skill: Apparition Lvl.1 is generated.>

<Ghost’s innate skill: Thermokinesis Lvl.1 is generated.>

<Ghost’s innate skill: Odorosity Lvl.1 is generated.>

<See Status window for updated Skill List.>

“Uwaah! I made it! I F*CKING MADE IT!!!!” Mikael cried out loud, unable to contain his joy at this development.

‘Finally! I- I won’t have to go to hell!’ Mikael thought in ecstasy.

Indeed, now that he reached the ghost class, even if he gets dragged back to the underworld right at that moment, he would not be punished for an eternity in Tartarus. Instead, he would be among the ordinary souls drifting mindlessly in the fields of Asphodel.

An afterlife with no pain nor bliss.

An afterlife for common people—but to the 2nd level sinner that was Mikael, it was an afterlife that he would embrace with open arms.

‘Still… nothing beats eternal bliss in Elysium.’ Mikael’s greed grew at the thought of spending his afterlife in heaven, ‘I have been in this world for less than three months. At this rate, maybe I can become an angel in half a year?’

His optimism blinded him to the fact that he only managed to acquire lots of positive karma due to the nature of the situation and that such events do not happen daily.

His face beaming with a bright smile, Mikael turned his attention to his other reward.

The little item looked nothing like a heart. It was a glassy sphere that reminded Mikael of a dragon ball, only, instead of gold, silver smoke with twinkling stars swirled inside. On the surface were numerous cracks and webs of fine fracture lines that faintly glowed white.

<System Notification: Would Player Mikael like to inspect the item “Damaged Dragon’s heart”?>

<Yes/No>

Without hesitation, Mikael answered yes and shared the panel contents with Deon.

<Obtained Item: Damaged Dragon’s heart

Item Type: Consumable

Item Class: ???

Description:

A Corrupted Dragon’s damaged heart. Due to Mana poisoning, Skaldr’s heart was terribly damaged and only a long period of purification can mend it. Nevertheless, the heart of a divine-grade creature is its greatest treasure, one that symbolizes its identity. Once purified, it can be absorbed by any living being to obtain some draconian racial characteristics. However, if the host failed to control the rate of absorption, heart consumption may be lethal hence, utmost caution is advised.

Item Effects:

(1) Increase stats acquisition by 1.5x per level up

(2) Fire resistance

(3) Ice resistance

(4) Poison Resistance

(5) Induce fear to all Lesser Dragon types

(6) Ensures high base favorability with dragons of the same species.>

“Whoaa! Th-this! Isn’t this too overpowered?! How could a dead dragon be hiding something like this?!” Mikael could not help but exclaim. As far as he knew, once dead, everyone would leave everything they owned behind in the land of the living. That’s why people always said to be good because wealth can’t be taken to paradise…

But apparently, such was not the case for divine beings.

‘Still, this is pretty much useless to me if it can only be absorbed by the living’ Mikael’s gaze turned to his dumbfounded partner, ‘Can Deon control this? If he can’t, we’re doomed for an unexpected train ride to the underworld.’

Mikael tried to assess his royal partner as objectively as possible however, he cannot deny the fact that Deon was still too weak to risk absorbing a potent dragon’s heart.

Seemingly feeling his gaze, Deon spoke in a quiet voice, “Sir… I know this is shameless but… I want to try…”

“Try what?” Mikael replied though he already knew what the young prince meant.

Deon took a deep breath and said, “Even if I die, I want to try absorbing the dragon’s heart.”

In the glow of the system’s panel, Deon’s expression looked grim and Mikael detected an unmistakable hint of fear but more than that was courage.

Mikael could not believe how much the kid had grown in the past week. Looking back to the prince he saw for the first time in the forest, Mikael could proudly say that the boy was no longer a wimp.

‘Heh! look at this brat and you won’t say he can’t hurt a fly, crown prince,’ Mikael chuckled.

“Not so fast, Princess. This thing still needs to be purified.” Mikael mentally controlled the dragon’s heart, letting it float in circles above the boy’s head.

Before Mikael could ask the system to purify the heart as it did in the Queen’s chamber, a booming voice echoed in the distance.

“DEOOOONNN!!!! ARE YOU HEEERRREEE?!!” Prince Avery’s voice sounded from the hole’s direction.

Following that were the half-hearted shouts of the knights.

“PRINCE!”

“YOUR HIGHNESS! WHERE ARE YOU?”

‘Finally,’ Mikael thought, rolling his pale green eyes at the pathetic sight, ‘took them long to notice Deon’s absence.’

More than relief, Deon panicked at his brother’s voice as he hastily snatched the dragon ball from the air and stuffed it inside his space ring.

“Deon!” the crown prince stomped toward his youngest sibling,

“Why didn’t you follow us properly?! Do you know how worried I was?! What if some leftover monster attacked you while you’re alone? You’re so weak! What if you had died? How would I tell our parents?” Avery strongly shook his little brother’s shoulders, reprimanding him with a crumpled expression.

“S-sorry, dear brother… I won’t do that again…”

“Oh, you’d better not! Once we go back to the castle, I’m going to tell father you must be grounded.” Avery glared at Deon before exasperatedly sighing, “What are you even doing here all alone? Weren’t you scared?”

“Tch! Alone? He’s with me so how is he alone? Aren’t you the one who left him behind?” Mikael grumbled, floating with his arms crossed on his chest, but only Deon could hear him.

–Chapter end–