My Fate System - Chapter 171

Cecily blinked her eyes twice, thrice, but still did not process his questions. This dark being, human, or monster, had no idea about The Great Unseen. She wondered if this was the case for all dark beings living inside?

“I guess I was too hopeful to ask a noble,” sighed the dark being and then started to walk away. Cecily stared at his back before she snapped out of her daze.

“This is The Great Unseen,” she explained. “It appeared a month ago and overtook the world. It has no regular borders and looks like a spiderweb that covers the world.”

“A land of darkness,” paused the dark being before turning toward her. “How interesting. The date?”

“Ah, it is 2217, May 29th. Um, are you a dark being or a human?”

“May… it has been a while since I was gone, it seems,” the dark being left without answering her questions. Cecily panicked because both Tanari and her would die for sure if he left.

“Please, help us out of this space!”

The dark being stopped moving all of a sudden. Cecily held her breath, waiting for him to leave her or attack. Instead, however, a tired sigh came from the man before he turned toward her.

“Follow me,” he said before disappearing into the darkness. Cecily was confused, but she did not waste her chance.

Tanari was heavy, but she could lift him since she had absorbed strength crystals before. The only issue was the difference in their size, which made her drag his legs behind her.

The dark being did not stop to help but kept walking forward. Cecily could feel her chest burning as she tried to stay awake. The darkness tried to devour her lungs, but the holy water in the masks worked as a purifier. Before she left, she looked back at her caravan and her dead followers.

“I won’t wait for you to cry,” he said and kept going. Cecily gritted her teeth and turned away from her dead comrades and wasted fortune, prioritizing the living over the dead.

Her legs ached, and at some point, she tore away her dress to move more freely. However, the man did not help her carry Tanari, and she never asked him to help her. It was only logical that a creature of darkness stays away from a man covered in holy water.

After some time, her leather shoes were torn, and they started to make her trip. Cecily threw them away and kept following the man into the darkness. She left footprints of blood as she dragged her retainer.

No monster appeared to hinder them as if the man in front of her knew how to avoid them. Instead, he kept inaudibly muttering as if trying to remind himself of something.

“We reached the end,” the man stopped walking and turned toward her. “A few meters from here, the darkness ends. I never thought you could carry him here. You deserve to live.”

“Ha, ha,” she was panting as she looked at the man. “I thank you for everything. This is a debt I will never forget. My name is…”

“I don’t want us to meet again,” the man interrupted her as he started walking back. “This is not a debt, but a trade. I have already obtained my payment from you.”

“I never gave you anything,” she was confused. Cecily looked at the man’s back, disappearing into the darkness as an ominous feeling overtook her heart. “What is the payment?” she shouted toward the darkness. A voice replied to her, ancient and distant.

“The souls of your comrades.”

***

“A month has passed since I snuck into Celestia,” muttered Nikolai as the darkness parted in front of him. “It seems that my actions caused this darkness. It explains the number of fate points I obtained.”

The events that transpired after he entered the Abyss were still fresh in his mind. However, Nikolai has underestimated the abode of the sealed gods. It was a wonder how he managed to succeed despite the risks.

“And finally,” smiled Nikolai. “I obtained Val’s powers.”

Nikolai stopped walking in front of the caravan’s corpses. Their lingering souls have left their bodies and hovered above the massacre site.

“Lost souls,” stared Nikolai at the swirling ethereal lights that formed clouds, crying their regrets. “I will give purpose to your existence,” Nikolai raised his hands toward the sky.

A pulse appeared from within him, gravitating and powerful. It came from the fragment he stole from the Abyss containing the Sovereignty over the dead.

“Gather here, lost ones,” invited Nikolai as his arms stretched and the souls cried in response. “I will give you a home, and you shall rise once again under my command.”

The souls shrieked in rage, regret, and agony. They gathered above him before diving into his body. Nikolai could feel their powers strengthening his soul as a notification appeared from his system.

[You have absorbed fifty-nine lost souls.]

[Sovereignty Level Up!]

[You can now use the lost souls to create undead monsters.]

Nikolai would have been intrigued if not for the aftermath of absorbing the souls. But, instead, his mind was filled with voices of the souls he absorbed. The hatred toward the world, regrets, and the agony of death were all transferred toward him for the briefest moment.

His mind was about to break, but another pulse from the Sovereignty Fragment washed away all of the voices. After that, Nikolai calmed down. It was no wonder that Val warned him about this power.

Nikolai was on his knees, breathing in the darkness. Fear blossomed in his heart as he realized that this power might make him rule over the dead, but it filled him with hatred.

“Hatred is fine too,” grinned Nikolai. “As long as I have the power to take revenge, then everything is fine too. I will make them pay for what they did to me.”

When he was in the abyss, surrounded by demons and sealed gods, in a sea of hatred and darkness, Nikolai had to confront his hatred toward himself. Nikolai loathed what he allowed himself to become, but he was wrong.

“They were the reason that I grew so corrupted, untrusting, and cynical,” he staggered while standing. “I will take revenge on everything they took away from me. My dignity, the people I cared for, and my strength. I will,” he gritted his teeth, “kill them all.”

His darkness exploded from his body to cover the carriages, corpses, lanterns, potions, and gold. It devoured everything, and when he was done, the field was empty except for the blood.

“This looks like a good spot to summon them,” smiled Nikolai as he walked forward toward the center. Then, the darkness exploded from his hands and gathered to form a giant black cube. “Sacrifice ten Lost Souls.”

[You can control three undead monsters with your current Sovereignty Level.]

[You have used ten Lost Souls to summon an undead.]

[The summoning has begun.]

An ethereal material left his body and seeped into the black cube, rotating. The rotation created a mighty wind that pushed Nikolai back, and the cube started to crack. The process took less than ten seconds until the cube was destroyed and something else came out.

Nikolai squinted his eyes to see what he obtained. Then, the dark mist started clearing away to reveal a thin whitish figure. As he recognized the monster, Nikolai realized how powerful the fragment was.

[You have summoned one Skeleton Soldier (Lvl. 1)]

“Tsk, tsk,” the teeth of the skeleton gnashed against each other, grinding in rage. It looked around with confusion before spotting Nikolai. Its joins gave multiple scrapping sounds as it lowered itself into a kneeling position.

“You are my soldier,” muttered Nikolai, and the Skeleton nodded. “However, you can attack me at any moment. This is my command. Destroy yourself,” Nikolai threw a sword toward it as he commanded.

The skeleton picked up the sword without hesitation and slashed toward its thigh. A clinging sound echoed as the bone was smashed into pieces, and the undead fell to the ground.

It did not stop and continued to bash different parts of its body. Nikolai watched with interest and realized that even though the bones broke, the darkness worked to reattach them to each other as if nothing had happened.

“You can stop,” smiled Nikolai. “Rise from the ground,” he commanded, and the skeleton obeyed and stood in front of him.

A wide grin appeared on Nikolai’s face as he realized that his undead would never disobey him, even if he commanded them to commit suicide. However, they would not die as long as he was alive.

[Undead.]

This was a sub-menu in his system, in the new feature called Sovereignty. Nikolai pressed on it and found one soldier, the skeleton.

When he chose the skeleton, the stats of the undead appeared in front of him. Nikolai was amazed as he looked at the abnormal stats.

“This undead is… immortal.”