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Oggoth, the sealed Demon God of Hypnotizing Eyes grimaced after he saw a bit of what his child, the Gazer leading the army that attacked the Squirrel-kin tribe experienced.
In the world of Kritias, several Gods developed the ability to obtain information about what their believers experienced as long as they were being prayed.
No long prayers were needed either. A small thought about the god they had faith over would work. However, depending on their believers and in the current power of the god, this information received would change accordingly. If the god were strong and vigorous, the information would be clear as water, but if the god were sealed and greatly weakened, the information received would be rather small and a bit unclear.
But Oggoth was a God whose authority was over eyes and minds and had a strong bond with Gazers. Due to this, he received a hazy amount of information, but he managed to settle it with his leftover powers.
"It is a pity that I am so weakened yet��� if I had just a bit more of my power, I would be able to decipher everything… but from I understand, the Gazer was captured by several monsters, strong enough to play around with it as if it were nothing… so I would assume they were at least Rank 5… Though, what was that knightess? It was able to separate her body- ah! A Living Armor?! An Undead monster… was it tamed by someone in that party? There were also dozens of plant monsters and a… floating child?!"
Oggoth was being constantly surprised by every tidbit of information that he was deciphering from the Gazer's last moments of life.
"That child… and that woman- no, the Living Armor… First of all, the child has an immense Mana capacity for a mortal! Although it is not as much as myself, it was still impressive… even more, when it was put into account how young it was and how its Mana seemed to be constantly produced as if he had an endless source inside his soul… Could that child be reincarnated… Demon God? But who?! Amongst the many that died in the Ragnarök… who was capable of controlling plant-type monsters? I do not remember any…"
Ervas mana capacity was so unbelievable for a mortal that even Demon God such as Oggoth recognized him as some kind of reincarnated God that had begun to develop his magic on his new mortal vessel ahead of its age.
"It was a human… But I have never seen humans with crimson eyes before. Perhaps it was some kind of Half-Demon? And if that child was not enough surprises, the Living Armor with it… It could shape its soul, which was as dark as the night… there was something eerie about it that I cannot easily take out of my mind. Could that Living Armor be a tamed monster from the child? It is possible…"
Not even Ervas, but also Veronica seemed quite odd for the Demon God. She had the outstanding speed for a Living Armor, and could even detach pieces of her body and use them as weapons. Without even talking about her ability to use her soul like claws and limbs, and…
"Breaking Souls?!"
Oggoth reached the part where he saw Veronica slowly break apart the spherical nucleus-like soul inside of every person's phantom. Although in living beings, the phantom was very small and almost unnoticeable, the 'real' soul was in the middle of it, as if the phantom was a cell, and the soul it's the nucleus.
A soul often had the shape of a bright, yellow sphere. However, Undead-type monsters were capable of developing their souls alongside their phantoms to change their colors, but Gazers, who were not Undead-type monsters, had the same normal soul as other living beings.
The Demon God of Hypnotizing Eyes saw with horror as Veronica mercilessly touched the soul of the Gazer, against all common sense, and crushed it with her very soul, which was shaped like a grotesque claw.
Crush!
"Giiiiiiiihhh… T-This is… The only ones capable of breaking souls are those that possess Death Attribute Magic! That accursed Attribute! There was a Demon God who had it, who commanded many of us to fight for him… back then, he was too powerful. We had to obey him if we didn't want our souls to be destroyed… and even if we were to try and escape, he had many loyal dogs that he would send after us… Thankfully, he was slain by a Bright God Heroic God, but the fear remains in my mind… The other being that is capable of destroying souls is one of the original gods of this world, Qadall, The God of Death and Souls… but he is an aloof being that didn't care about conflicts or wars, and barely participated when it was highly needed,"
In the world of Kritias, and most any world, destroying souls was something impossible outside of beings who held divine authority over souls such as Qadall. The soul was an immortal existence, and each time someone died, the soul would leave the body and go to the Reincarnation Cycle of its respective world, which was often run by a god with the authority over souls.
There, the soul would be cleansed of 'impurities' (memories) and then be sent to a new soulless body. Undead such as Ghosts, Zombies, and Living Armor were souls that held strong grudges and remained in the mortal world, their Phantoms were contaminated by Mana and then mutated into monsters.
Undead monsters born from dungeons were different than these occasions, as they were created inside dungeons that drawn any soul that had been recently freed from its body towards itself. This was also a problem in Kritias, as more dungeons were born, the reincarnation System made by Qadall would turn messier and fewer souls would come to him, as they would be recycled inside dungeons instead, which were like magnets for souls.
There were also the rare cases of wielders of the Death Attribute. A powerful attribute that was crucial in many worlds, but rarely wielded as power by a mortal. Death Attribute Magic wielders were capable of exerting a variety of mystical spells related to death, one of them included the power to touch other's souls by changing a part of their physical bodies into a phantom.
Only those who had a deep understanding of Death Magic were capable of doing such a feat… and Oggoth knew of one very well, a Death Attribute Demon God that once commanded many Demon Gods through tyrannical strength and fear.
In history, there were still other Death Attribute Mages, but most of them never developed such an ability… or perhaps they were not able to do so before they were eliminated by the Bright Gods Faction. Especially when more so often, Death Attribute Mages were born within Demons.
But Veronica wasn't a demon, she was a monster, and she did not have the Death Attribute Magic Skill either… how could she destroy souls?
Oggoth only had a conjecture and assumed that she, a simple monster, had developed Death Attribute Magic.
Not even Veronica knew the real reason behind this ability, but she knew that if she was capable of doing so, Ervas, her split soul, should also have the ability.
Oggoth was frightened about the idea of having his soul crushed and his existence ended.
However, he was a stubborn Demon God… and he was also sealed, it was not as if he would be able to run away somewhere. At most, he wanted to evade these beings and the Squirrel-kin tribe and go around the Devil Forest enslaving the other tribes instead.
But because he did not want to draw much attention to these individuals who seemed overly protective of these indigenous tribes, he decided to move slowly and do not rush things.
"It is not like I can escape from this place… at most, I have to slowly raise my population of followers and strengthen myself… if those two days dare to come and clash against me, I will have to use every tool at my disposal to kill them before that happens! …Even more, if I am capable of killing them and assimilating their souls into my body, I might be able to acquire some of their powers…"
Amongst Gods, it was possible to steal each other's authorities and powers, or even some Gods such as Oggoth, who had powers over the mind, could parasitize the soul's minds and slowly erode them into his body, assimilating them into his soul and acquiring a few of their powers.
This practice was used many times to increase his strength in the past, but now he had lost most of the power he once accumulated.
As Oggoth thought about his next course of actions, in the Squirrel-kin tribe, it was already morning and there was a long file of beautiful women waiting outside of Ervas's tent.
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