World Keeper

Chapter 452: Culmination

The following day, after steeling his resolve, Jonas stood within a wide meadow. Given that this should be the final step to obtain divinity, he did not want to risk and explosive outbursts of energy damaging the town. In his hand, he still carried the shard of divinity which had been gifted to him from the Goddess of Magic. A shard he intended to use to ease his passage into divinity.

Ryone herself did not know the exact method to reach divinity, but she was sure that it had nothing to do with the shard he had received from her. After all, Dale had never requested a shard of divinity from any of the gods, and had managed to ascend on his own. So, she saw his action of using her gift in this manner as somewhat of a waste.

Nonetheless, it had given him the courage to take the final step. Without that, it was hard to say how long Jonas would have idled at the doorstep of divinity.

Looking down to the fragment in his hand, Jonas let out a deep breath. Then, closing his eyes, he focused on condensing all of his mana. This one moment would determine whether he lived eternally or died horribly.

Jonas’s hand moved fast enough to create a blur, slamming the fragment of divinity directly into his own forehead where he had condensed his mana. Taking control of the mana, he used it to forcefully connect his mana with his divine attributes, merging everything into one.

The process stung, admittedly… but no more so than he would expect from shoving a shard of what was basically glass into his forehead. Compared to the previous upgrades, it was… not even worth mentioning. A golden light shone brightly within the meadow, as if a second sun had appeared along the ground.

This sun lasted for no more than a minute before fading, and Jonas’s eyes opened. There was a new, mystical presence to his gaze, a power that would never waver. And while he questioned whether or not he had succeeded, a series of messages appeared in front of himself.

“But Daaaale!” Aurivy whined after seeing the choice that I had made for Jonas’s domain.

“No, Aurivy.” I let out a groan, shaking my head. There were only two recommended options for domains that Jonas could take, and I didn’t feel like giving him something random. “I was not going to make him the God of Slime.”

“But it would be so cool! And think about it, he used slimes practically every step of the way while he was ascending!” She protested, despite the event having already been set in stone.

“If an actual slime becomes a god, I promise I’ll let them be the God of Slimes, okay?” I asked, reaching over and patting Aurivy’s head. That seemed to placate her while I was left to think about what had happened.

The concept of subordinate gods was something I had not even been aware of before the message flashed in front of Jonas. I had even obtained an achievement myself for my world gaining a subordinate god, the Divine Overseer achievement. However, this did present a series of possibilities.

First of all, was it possible for someone like Jonas to use his own divinity to make more subordinate gods of himself? Or would they be subordinate to Ryone, given that he was acting as an extension of her power? There could be a divine hierarchy of those who obtained divinity on their own alongside those who became subordinate to another god.

Secondly… why was this feature even a thing? The final step of ascension was not difficult enough to require a shortcut like this. Was it an option for those who wished to impose their will on lesser gods, forcing them to take the path? Or was the last step actually harder for those who took the path of perfecting the body first?

“Hey, Dale.” Aurivy spoke up suddenly, seeming a bit dazed next to me. “Do you still have that information sphere for your martial arts? Not Aki Seppo, the other one.”

“Thousand Arms, Ten Thousand Threads?” I muttered, having been a little while since I practiced that ability. Not strictly out of laziness, but rather because I hadn’t descended for a while, and had been enjoying my time off.

“Yeah, that!” She nodded her head rapidly, holding her hand out. With a shrug, I summoned the information sphere and passed it to her. “Thanks!” She called out. To my surprise, she got up and ran off as soon as she had the sphere, retreating to her room.

Mother sent me another message! Trials spoke up over the link. She’s preparing a gift for us!

A gift?

From Mother? The voices naturally spoke up in shock and wonder as they heard that. The progress to obtain Dungeon Masters had been going rather slowly now, as most of the remaining dungeons were in hard to reach locations, or those who had strict standards such as the Tower of Perfection. Those who had already obtained the knight class were practicing their divinity while studying the slimes, while the rest were eagerly looking for new candidates.

As such, both sides relished the idea of a present from their Mother. She said she can’t tell me what it was, but she would tell me what she was calling it…

Well? What is it?! Several voices cried out as one.

She said it was a technique. Something we could learn. Mother called it Thousand Arms, Ten Thousand Threads, A Single Heart.

“Finally…” A young woman spoke, a unicorn centauress clad in silver armor. Her eyes held an age her body lacked, a coldness that was thawing by the second with new warmth and expectation. Alme Dien had finally succeeded.

The Kingdom of Dien Sur had finally been able to properly expand. The soldiers had grown to the point where Alme Dien was no longer an unrivaled existence in the world. They had expanded their reach by a single island in every direction, and were maintaining a steady pace of growth.

Alme lost track of how long she had spent within this world. All she knew was that it was truly too long. She felt like she had broken all of those promises to those people she had left behind, despite knowing that the time they experienced would be shorter. For all she knew, those kings and queens that she had befriended would still be long dead.

Alme looked back to her castle, where the new Queen of Dien Sur rested within her room. She was a dragon centaur, a force to truly be reckoned with within this world. She was also… the first Princess that Alme had raised to become an heir, rather than an advisor.

This change had shocked many people, but Alme quelled all rebellion. She had been their queen since the dawn of the world, so it was only natural that they protest her stepping down at this point. But Alme was tired, so tired of ruling. She wanted to run through hills and valleys again, carefree and alongside her father.

The explanation that she gave them was simple. Dien Sur no longer needed an Eternal Queen, and so she would rejoin Tryval to walk by his side. Many people took this to mean that she would be dying, when in truth her words were quite literal. It had long become established fact that Alme Dien was the daughter of their God, so the thought of returning to his side seemed as if it meant ascending to the heavens.

Alme was fine with letting them believe what they wished to believe. Once this world and Earth had begun to explore each other, they would learn the truth. They may blame her for abandoning them but she did not lie to them. They no longer needed her to rule them. She had given them all of the knowledge that she could, all of the preparation that they would need to claim the world as their own.

As a figure stepped up beside her, Alme felt her heart grow warm. This holy warmth was something that she had been unable to properly experience in so long. With a burst of ki, her armor shattered, leaving her in a flowing black dress that covered her upper body. “I’m back, father…”

“I know.” Tryval said with a gentle smile, reaching down to brush a few tears out of Alme’s eyes just as they formed. “Let’s go home.”

Home… that felt like such a strange word now. For thousands of years, she had lived in Sher Dien, ruling over a developing nation. Now, her mind could not help but think of this place as her home. Yet her hearts were another matter. There was always only one home for her hearts, alongside her father.

“Now this is my kind of dungeon!” Petra laughed, standing tall above the island which had once been home to the dungeon Storm. Now, it had been renamed as Shadow, and had experienced a fundamental change in the process.

Petra had spent over a year saturating the island with the power of her darkness, allowing it to seep into every special ore the dungeon controlled. As she had become the dungeon’s master, the dungeon was naturally not opposed to the change. If anything, it was excited, as this meant the opportunity for it to study divine energy at work.

The storm which constantly surrounded the island was still present, still warding against any enemy attacks. Only, it had undergone a mutation due to the nature of those ores changing.

The massive stormcloud had turned a shade darker, with black figures seeming to run through them. The lightning which fell from these clouds lost its natural color, becoming pitch black. There was an almost evil, fiendish look to the storm now. Even the magnartum that caused the island to float had experienced a change, creating a blanket of shadow that swept beneath the eye of the storm.

Without piercing this darkness, or looking from above the storm itself, nobody would be able to properly see the true shape of the island. This was Petra’s masterpiece, her Shadow Citadel. Though not as grand and comfortable as the Keeper’s palace, she was confident in its power.

“Now…” She reached into the shadow of her wing. When she withdrew her hand, she was holding a golden sphere. “Shall we join the Dungeon Master Games?”

While she had spent the vast majority of her time reconstructing the dungeon to suit her elemental preference, she would still occasionally leave in order to check on the rest of the world. After all, with the AC unit in her hand, she could teleport back to the dungeon from any distance.

Petra had long since learned of a competition being established by the dungeon masters. In this competition, two masters would activate their cores and begin a small-scale war between their forces. Any of the enemy’s troops you killed would then be given to your own unit to become your strength.

Other dungeon masters had been using this to establish a ranking among themselves, and Petra was eager to join in. She had already received permission to make her identity as a dungeon master known, so it was time to join the battle.