When the plot-skips players into the game world

Chapter 664: Chapter 60: Two Golden Entries!

Chapter 664: Chapter 60: Two Golden Entries!

Aiwass was somewhat helpless.

Even though the Lord of Scalefeather had given him a golden entry, there was no way to choose because “Soul of Dissolution” is an essential core entry that an Illuminator must have; once it appeared, that was the only option he could select.

The three entries this time were all highly valuable.

Even the purple entry [Heart of Blazing Flames] was only unsuitable for Aiwass because “Spells being enhanced” just meant adding a level of priority, which is equivalent to adding a level of penetration.

And all it required was “consuming fire attribute mana,” not even specifying that the spell must be of fire attribute.

For a Blood Magus whose blood-burning spells can heal and thus form a self-sustaining cycle, the negative prerequisite of having to burn blood to activate is negated, which essentially makes it a simple and honest damage increase entry.

If Aiwass were to advance into the Master of Beasts and acquired the ability to merge with the Great Sin Beasts, focusing mainly on the Defiant Flame Butterfly as his core combat power, this entry would actually be useful.

The various spell abilities of the Defiant Flame Butterfly would certainly consume fire attribute mana.

That would amount to directly gaining a level of penetration.

And [Rhythm of War]…

What the hell kind of entry is this!

It’s quite fierce, offering up to seven buffs when bullying the weak and ensuring stable health regeneration when maxed out.

It’s like having a group of Priests following you, adding buffs.

You could say it’s glaringly strong.

It’s just unusable.

…Because Aiwass doesn’t do close combat at all.

Even after he becomes the Master of Beasts and is able to merge, not to mention his current two Great Beasts lean towards being backline casters, he hasn’t even captured any close-combat physical Great Beasts.

Plus, Aiwass is a Priest himself!

He’s even an Illuminator, whose main focus is on enhancement.

The only problem is that he can’t apply buffs to himself…

but he can first enhance his Great Beasts, then merge with them, gaining the enhancements that way.

There’s absolutely no need to activate it through killing.

At a minimum, it would take seven killings to max out–“killing” refers to sentient beings, and you would at least need to kill a troll for it to count.

Even wild beasts wouldn’t qualify.

The warm-up time is too long, making it inconvenient.

However, Aiwass was somewhat surprised.

Because logically, the entries given by the Pillar God’s Grace should belong to the power of the Pillar God.

Just as the Gemini Mirror had given Aiwass an entry with a clear “mirror” element.

If the Lord of Scalefeather were to grant an entry, it should also be the power of the Path of Adaptation.

But no matter how he looked at it, this seemed to belong to the Path of Authority…

or rather, it was a “Strength” entry.

In a moment of reverie, Aiwass thought of the Breaker of Sieges that had descended into Lancelot’s body.

–Could it have been blown to bits by Liya?

That would align with that mushroom cloud Aiwass had never seen…

“…Speaking of which.”

Aiwass suddenly remembered a sentence.

[–Just so you know, I came here to kill you, Aiwass.]

At the time, the Breaker of Sieges had said this.

Because it was Aiwass who had descended into Aiwass’ body, sometimes he wasn’t sure which Aiwass the other was calling.

But now that he thought about it, that sentence seemed a bit odd.

Aiwass being targeted by the Bear Celestial Marshal originally stemmed from him killing the last of the Giant Royal Family–they had the blood of the Bear Celestial Marshal, and that prince might have even been his Angel Envoy candidate.

So, it wouldn’t be strange for Him to take revenge on Aiwass in return.

But the Aiwass of this world line had never come into contact with Noble Red.

In the game world line, the Giant Prince was alive and well until the end, and it’s quite likely that he’s alive here too.

Therefore, the Bear Celestial Marshal had no reason to target the Aiwass of this world line.

–So, the one that person was looking for was the “Aiwass” as an ascender.

In other words, the Breaker of Sieges was an [Intruder]!

Those Phantom Demons who bypassed the host’s protection and interfered directly with the ascension ceremony from the Dream Realm!

It is said that high-level ascension ceremonies might see intruders because their souls are delicious enough.

A group of powerful and pure souls, unprotected and gathering for ascension…

If the host guarding them is weak, it’s not impossible for others to target them.

But Akpolis should be stronger than the “Breaker of Sieges,” Erinyes, not allowing her to easily break in.

So…

“Is it a trap?”

Aiwass came to a realization.

After all, the Lord of Scalefeather has mastery over the domain of prophecy, and it’s quite normal for him to be able to calculate everything.

Modifications were made to this ascension ceremony to ensure its effectiveness…

so that the Lancelot of Shadow Nation could be drawn in, and the Breaker of Sieges could be brought in as well.

If that’s the case, then the Lancelot he had summoned might not be a temporarily generated “simulated Lancelot.” Aiwass was curious about how the ascension ceremony managed to force a Celestial Marshal to descend through the Ceremony of Avalon’s Shadow…

Now it seems that it’s simply not possible.

Perhaps the one who suddenly made contact and tried to seize his body was also the true Serpent Celestial Marshal…

So, this was a ceremony tailored specifically for Aiwass!

Because only in this ceremony would Aiwass naturally use the Ceremony of Avalon’s Shadow, and since the ceremony itself was “real,” the Serpent Celestial Marshal could also make contact with him.

Looking back, Aiwass’ sudden desire to perform this ceremony was probably due to the influence of the Serpent Celestial Marshal–only when Aiwass approached the Ring of Ouroboros ceremony could the Serpent Celestial Marshal seize him.

Currently, there are still some remnants of crystal snake scales on Aiwass’ forearm, which are proof of this.

And the Lord of Scalefeather had even anticipated the actions of the Serpent Celestial Marshal!

“…Isn’t this just using me as bait?!”

Aiwass felt somewhat dissatisfied.

Oh well, that’s fine.

At the very least, that guy died in this ritual, and it even gave Aiwass some benefits.

The Breaker of Sieges was after all a hunter pursuing Aiwass.

As a powerful Angel Envoy of the Bear Celestial Marshal, her premature death could be considered a good thing.

If she descended directly from the Material Realm to chase after Aiwass, it would have been troublesome.

Thinking of this, Aiwass felt a bit startled, but also somewhat regretful.

——What if I hadn’t backed down at that time and had initiated the full Ceremony of Avalon’s Shadow?

What would have happened?

To actually drag the Bear Celestial Marshal himself down——

But Aiwass quickly dismissed his own bold thoughts.

If it really had been the Bear Celestial Marshal who descended, his soul would never have been able to remain inside him for so long, and he probably would have been crushed to death instantly.

Aiwass chose the [Soul of Dissolution] without a second thought.

[Soul of Dissolution (Gold): Your soul ascends to a more exalted form, “medium” scale Blessings no longer require rituals; you will be immune to sleep, Charm, Curse, and instant death spells, and your soul can be extracted as a consumable from your body at will]

The resistances provided by this entry weren’t very useful…

As Aiwass had said before, resistances are not as good as penetrations.

However, the immunity provided was a bit better than nullification, so it couldn’t be considered completely useless.

Just like the fourth Energy Level [Flame Nullification Barrier], which would be completely penetrated by a fourth Energy Level Defiant Flame Butterfly with divinity…

nullified, but not completely nullified.

The principle behind different “immunities” is different.

A skeleton is immune to sleep because it truly cannot sleep; there’s simply no possibility of that happening.

Such immunity wouldn’t exist as an entry.

But an immunity provided by an entry can naturally be pierced by other entries — after all, the power is from the same source, originating from the power of The River of the Dream Realm.

The nullification of flame can be pierced by flame damage coupled with divinity, and piercing flame immunity is a little more troublesome.

It requires entries that sidestep with “flame damage converted to soul damage,” “flame damage with added true damage,” “reduce flame resistance on hit,” or a golden entry like “full effect of flame damage.”

The immunity provided by [Soul of Dissolution] is based on preemptive dispersion.

A Priest can dispel negative status effects one level above their own, and Soul of Dissolution is akin to transforming one’s soul into golden mist.

It can instantly dispel any negative status effect touching the soul while also enhancing it by one level.

In other words, this immunity is equivalent to Aiwass constantly releasing a dispel one level higher than himself.

Any negative status effect targeting the soul must first get past this dispel barrier.

It can be nearly considered as raising resistance by two levels, and even higher-level negative effects will be weakened due to being dispelled.

However, the main reason Aiwass chose this entry was actually because of its first property.

[——Your soul ascends to a more exalted form, “medium” scale Blessings no longer require rituals.]

“Blessing” refers to active BUFFs.

The trait of an Illuminator allowed him to instant-cast “small” scale Blessings without materials, which is why he could apply various BUFFs to his teammates during a fight.

The [Soul of Dissolution] is an Illuminator’s class-exclusive entry, raising the level of material-free Blessings to “medium.”

Medium-scale rituals provide far stronger buffs than small-scale ones.

Small-scale ritual blessings, like the “Blessing of Luck,” which is the Blessing Aiwass applied to the group before they fought the Penalty Demon, include others like “Blessing of Haste” and “Blessing of Courage.” Their potency is comparatively weak…

akin to Blessings that could be completed with just holy water or holy salt and a verse or two of chanting, which he could now cast instantly.

Medium-scale rituals include BUFFs such as “Gallant Spirit,” “Breaker of Adversities,” and “Sturdy Body” — the kind of effects provided by the golden entry from the share of spoils.

For example, “Sturdy Body” provides 20% “Strength” effect; “Breaker of Adversities” offers 20% “Adversity.”

Strength means the higher the health, the greater the increase in attack and defense, with a full health effect of 20%; Adversity is the opposite, the lower the health, the greater the increase in attack and attack speed, up to 20% at 1% health.

They have a separate stacking area to regular buffs, meaning they are not diluted by regular increases, only by other “Strength” and “Adversity” effects, and they are calculated multiplicatively with other damage boosts.

This was a real improvement!

As for “extracting the soul from the body”…

It related to another trait of the Illuminator.

An Illuminator’s special soul can be turned into a “soul stone.” Hence, the statues left by deceased Illuminators can continue to bestow blessings upon those around them.

The job was initially discovered during a mission originating from the Holy Nation regarding a “strange statue of a Saint.”@@novelbin@@

[Soul of Dissolution] allowed this single transaction to be turned into installments, turning the solid golden gem into golden mist.

One can share parts of their own soul with others, and the damaged soul could slowly recuperate due to its transformed state.

In the game, its effect was to create “Illuminator Spirit Liquid” in a teammate’s inventory for use, with each Illuminator only able to create one at a time, and it could be used only once inside a dungeon.

Essentially, you could link to only one teammate per dungeon.

Its usage effect was to instantly remove all forms of soul control, instantly restore half of the maximum health, and provide a significant health regen for three seconds, as well as all attribute enhancements for thirty seconds…

The subsequent health regen was nearly enough to restore another half of one’s health.

It was practically equal to getting an extra life on the spot.

However, in a game where players could visit the cash shop to get potions for instant health and control removal, this ability was mainly used to enable core damage dealers to perform top bursts…

But in this world, without having access to the huge purple “All-purpose Spiritual Medicine” and the big red “Essence of Life,” this item could truly save lives.

…Before going to the Holy Nation, I should leave a vial of soul for Isabel.

Aiwass thought to himself.

She gave me a necklace that could save my life, and in return, giving her a vial of my soul would be fitting.

There is no more appropriate gift than that.