Chapter 20 - Healing Kuroka and Job (Patreon)

"Look what has remained from us? From the hundreds of millions, only a few tens of thousands remain, and the once glorious Pantheons of my world became nothing but ruins. A testament to the passage of time and the might of the Deadric Princes. Most of our people died to the hordes of the Deadric Princes and the Planemeld, and not many have the will to continue moving forward."

"That may be the truth, but it doesn't mean that your people cannot rebuild and start anew. Many have experienced calamities that would break them, but we cannot dwell on our past, and for our people, we need to strive for a better future. Right now, Nirn is the home of your peoples, and if the Molag Bal succeeds in the Planemeld, then the same fate would await our world as well."

"For the Alliance! For Tamriel! For Nirn!"

- Dialogue between the King of the Kingdom of Lucis, Yhwach Adnyeus, and Queen Ayrenn Arana Aldmeri, Queen of the Aldemeri Dominion, during the establishment of the Grand Alliance of Tamriel

***

Codex: Golden Lineage

The Golden Lineage is the Royal Bloodline descended from the Yhwach Adnyeus and several of his wives. The Golden Lineage was established after the Planemeld of the Draconic Deus, which was several years after his ascension to the Empyrean after he merged with the Laws of the Cardinal World.

The Golden Lineage is the control of the Golden Order, one of the most prominent forces of the Grand Alliance and it is also the state religion of the Lucis Kingdom. More followed than the Pantheon of the Aedras and Deadras upon the loss of Godhood of the surviving Gods from the Draconic Dues due to the different Laws of the Cardinal World - Aurbis.

The Golden Lineage has produced, till now, some of the strongest combatants of the Grand Alliance either through direct procreation or through the Golden Blood Sacrament or Golden Order Fundamentalism. 

Warriors of the Golden Lineage are a crucial aspect and key players in the war against the Daedric Prince of Domination, Molag Bal, and the forces of the Ebonheart Pact and Daggerfall Covenant.

- Introduction to the Golden Lineage of Tamriel

***

Several days have passed since he started working on the rehabilitation of Subject Zero-X, who was revealed to be Kuroka Tojou, at least to the other members of the companionship who were involved in the operation.

Valiana was especially keen on the recuperation process of the Nekoshou teen because she herself, as the victim of the experiments from the side of the Old Satan Faction, absolutely abhorred similar things, and she just wanted to help.

This was oddly weird considering Valiana's rather selfish personality, as the Devil Dragon only cared for herself and nobody else that much. At least, when it came to strangers or people with whom she had zero to no connection, she didn't care about their fate at all.

This time, it was a bit different.

It was pretty surprising and, for him, even disturbing, maybe?

Who knew?

Yhwach continued the work on the ritual, through which they would refine Zaorama Nebiros into the pure Blood Essence and then transfer it to Kuroka's body and start healing her.

He decided that he wasn't going just for some random, paltry healing skills, but he would be going for the full recovery of her DNA and the recovery of her lost talent, while at the same time, he would be removing the Evil Piece from her body.

This would be a lengthy process, but he was rather confident as he did extensive research on the Devil's Physiology and Genetics. 

With the [Ultimate Skill Hastur, the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] handling the calculations and everything around it, he was able to fix everything in the Reincarnated Devil's Genome. 

The calculation capabilities of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] were far superior to the [Unique Skill Great Sage], were really far superior. Yhwach started investing a lot more time into learning the Runic Magic and mastering the Runes, starting with the most basic version of them. 

The Runes, as he directly dismissed the Calculation Magic altogether. 

Modern Runes, Modern Human Magic, or Calculation Magic was the branch of Magic that was created by several mostly human Magicians over time. In the Draconic Deus, humans had rather a poor aptitude for Magic and couldn't wield it properly.

So...

Many hybrids, Blessed Ones, or people with an extremely high aptitude for Magic turned their attention to the Runes. Obviously, the ordinary human Magicians could study the Runes all day long and won't learn anything about them, much less being said about the Elder Runes.

In the end, Merlin Ambrosius or Myrdin Emrys combined the Runes together with the Devil Magic as he himself was half-devil and half-human. At the same time, the Devil Magic was the most versatile Magic in the Draconic Deus.

He also added there some things from the different types of Magic and created the first prototype of Calculation Magic, which used simplified Runes to carry out the complex calculations in coordination with Imagination to create the Spell Matrix and cast spells.

While the Calculation Magic seemed to be perfect for someone like him who possessed the [Unique Skill Great Sage] and later the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], yet at the same time, it was a pitfall.

The power of the Calculation Magic was shit, and casting of the more advanced spells, the ones that would be reaching the power of even Level 4, meaning the destructiveness of the spell needed to be at least around the small city, was tremendous.

And when he said it was tremendous, then it was taking around 5% of the calculation abilities of the [Unique Skill Great Sage]. While the 5% of the [Unique Skill Great Sage], didn't really seem a lot, in fact it was tremendous number for Yhwach.

The higher the one went, the more challenging the calculations became.

This resulted in a state where almost no powerful Magicians used the Calculation Magic exclusively, or they created various Foci to put out the heat of the calculations on some kind of Artifact or Mystic Code.

Yhwach didn't really like this method because depending on something other than himself didn't really sit well with him, not to mention he could easily comprehend and use the Runes as much as he wished.

This meant that for him personally, using or learning the Caclution Magic was obsolete.

Right now, he was making the final adjustments to the Runic Array that he would be using to support the ritualistic sacrifice of the Zoaram Nebiros and a whole bunch of the Devils from the Old Satan Faction, including a few of the Ultimate-Class Devils that were still alive.

They had rather a lot of prisoners. 

So, it was time to put them to good use.

This ritual, which also includes the Soul Sacrifice aside from the Blood Sacrifice, should propel Kuroka to recover her lost potential. Because the researchers of the Old Satan Faction wanted to find a method of breaking through the Genetic constraints on the Devil Race as soon as possible, they caused her to burn out.

Most of her potential was burned out completely.

Even though she was rather powerful physically, being somewhere around Level 4, and according to the calculation of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], if she launched some of the special Yokai Abilities, she would be powerful enough to blast apart some random smaller mountains.

But that was all.

She would never be able to advance past that.

This was undoubtedly a rather cruel fate for the girl. 

So, Yhwach, in a very rare moment of compassion, decided to change that, and in fact, when he conducted some research with the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], it became rather easy to fix her problems with some addition of the Ritualistic Magic.

"How are you progressing?"

Valiana, who was sitting in silence in the room for more than one hour, asked as she noticed that he was finished with the preparations for the ritual.

"The main ritual is complete. I can conduct it any time as long as the interrogation and extractions on the Devils are finished. According to my predictions, the Life Essence of the High Ultimate-Class Devil and several Ultimate-Class Devils, who are all Pure-Blooded Devils from the Noble Lineages, will not only heal the collapsing DNA, but as the ritual will make use of their Souls, it will also heal the damage to her Soul. Meaning that she would profit tremendously from this."

Yhwach answered as he was inscribing another Rune in the Runic Matrix that would be creating the ritual circle. After studying the Runes with the help of [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], Yhwach arlaed reached Expert-ranked Mastery in the [Runes] and achieved initial understanding of the [Elder Runes].

Even though the initial understanding wasn't anything groundbreaking, it meant that he could now decipher the approximate meaning of the Runes. During all of this, he also obtained a new Unique Skill.

[Runic Mathematics - A Combination of the Fields of mathematics and Runes, allowing the user to use the Mathematics to understand the purpose, meaning, dimension, and entire existence of the Runes.]

The [Unique Skill - Runic Mathematics] was a rather powerful Unique Skill because it combined two approaches to the understanding of the Universe.

Mathematics was believed to be the language of the Universe by the no-majs, who thought that through mathematics, they could understand the Universe, how it functioned, and practically everything around it.

At the same time, Magicians believed that this could be achieved through their understanding of Runes. The more powerful and profound Runes one managed to comprehend, the more of the Universe the Magician could understand.

Which was certainly true, as the Runes were essentially the most Magical language out there while also being the Power Language. 

Then the [Unique Skill - Runic Mathematics] came into the place, as through the usage of the [Unique Skill - Runic Mathematics] Yhwach was able to tmreneodusl yincrase his own understanding and comprehension of the Runes and various Runic Languages. 

At the same time, if he combined the use of [Unique Skill - Runic Mathematics] with the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], it would create a rather overpowered combination that would allow him to use Runes like no one else.

Almost.

"Well... that's the good thing, I guess. After everything that she suffered at the hands of the Old Satan Faction, at least something good will come out of it."

Valiana said because, in the end, the situation ended way better than she had anticipated.

She new that Yhwach would be able to fix her collapsing DNA with some Magic and it seemed that Zaorama and the rest of the Pure-Blood Devils that they captured.

At least they would be put to good use. 

If nothing else.

"How long till it will be finished?"

Right now, they were being sent on a mission to America to find out about the state of the Greek Pantheon and their impending civil war that was looming over their heads. Because they needed to go there as soon as possible, as they had already lost a lot of time back home, everyone was in a hurry right now. 

"I will conduct the ritual today, but she will probably wake up in two months or so. Even though a lot of Life Essences, Blood Essence, and Soul Essence would be extracted from the sacrifices, it would take some time for her body to assimilate all of it."

Yhwach planned to conduct the ritual today, because the integration of the subjects captured should be finished by today. Then their uses would be zero, so he could initiate the sacrificial ritual and refine them to heal Kuroka.

The two months timespan was set by Yhwach on purpose, but through the calculation of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] he discovered that if the "effects" of the ritula were injected into her body in parts over some longer timespan, the effects would be much greater and better.

That was because the cells in the body had some sort of absorption capacity for energy; basically, they had a cap of energy that they could take in within a certain amount of time. If the energy injected into them was too much, it would overflow, and most of the time, the body would just exert the energy back into the environment.

Basically, it is dispersing it in the nothingness.

It was rather a wasteful approach.

[Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] calculated that if Kuroka reached 100% of intake, 100% of saturation, and 100% of intake from the Sacrificial Ritual, then her power would be able to reach Level 6 in the span of two years. 

From the current Level 3 it was rather tremendous increase in power.

Obviously, as she was basically Chi Master, she wouldn't have the combat prowess to destroy entire continents because the Ki Masters generally lacked high destructive capabilities on the Draconic Deus, which was mainly attributed to their lack of research in the limits of Chi or Ki.

Most of them used it solely to strengthen their bodies, but a very low number of them actually bothered to figure out how to use Ki as a purely destructive method. What was worse, some of the staunchest traditionalists even thought that this approach was heretical to the martial arts and the Path of Ki.

Only by learning Touki they could obtain some really destructive prowess, butt Yhwach already made a mental note and ordered [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], to make some calculation on how to make Ki Techniques more destructive, most preferably recreating some destructive techniques from the Dragon Ball that he remembered.

"And now it's done."

Yhwach muttered as he inscribed the last part of the Runic Matrix and the last Rune. The entire process was finished, and with this being done, he could start the Sacrificial Ritual to heal Kuroka.

"Go to the Dungeons and tell them to bring the Devils here if they are done with them. Preferably unconscious, so I don't have to deal with them."

He told Valiana, who then went to carry out his order and bring here the captured Devils from the Dungeons to the ritual room where he was waiting for them. Soon enough, the captured Devils were dragged here by the Asuran Prison Guards, who placed the five captured Devils at each point of the pentagram that was drawn on the ground.

The sixth devil, the star of the show, Zaorama Nebiros, was the sole Level 5 High Ultimate-Class Devil captured by them. He was placed in the middle of the pentagram-shaped Runic Matrix.

"Place him in the middle and surround him with the Mana Crystals."

The Mana Crystal was a crystallized form of pure Mana. Within the Supernatural World of the Draconic Deus, which lacked any form of unified currency, various forms of currency were being used.

One of the most common was the Magic Gold Coin, which was rather common among many species. These were magically refined Gold Coins that couldn't be replicated by a single spell, so people would just crush the economy by endlessly replicating and creating Gold.

Magic Gold was different.

It was created by refining large amounts of Gold into their most concentrated and magical form, which would then be enchanted and imprinted by the imprints of various Banks that existed within the Supernatural World.

For the more high-level exchanges, the trade was using different currencies.

Mostly, various treasures or objects like Mana Stones, Mana Crystals, Divine Crystals, and similar things that have various uses. Once the arrangements were done, Yhwach stood outside of the runic matrix, and using the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], he activated the Sacrificial Ritual that he had created.

Soon enough, the entire Spell Matrix lit in blue color, as Yhwach and Valiana stood some distance from the entire ritual circle as he controlled the entire spell through the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore].

Yhwach found out that using the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] to control the rituals was basically invaluable because it lowered the possibility of something going wrong during the ritual to almost zero. 

The benefits that were brought by the evolution of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] to the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] were immense.

Yhwach has learned that due to the fact that the Draconic Deus wasn't a Cardinal World, the development of the Ultimate Skill was different than he had initially predicted and that it would be much slower than he had originally anticipated.

Though... he had more than enough time.

Right now, he knew that the original abilities of the [Unique Skill Great Sage] were tremendously strengthened. To the point, if he was now fighting against Valiana or Bikou in hand-to-hand combat, then his winning rate was now around 70% to 80% with the calculation capabilities of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore].

If he went to the limits of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], then the probability of him winning were even 90%. Though, at the same time, Yhwach knew to not depend on the calculation capabilities of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], because...

It wasn't really the best. 

The crux of the problem was that the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] worked with the information that was known to him about the opponent and situation. 

For example, if he fought with Valiana, then the probability of him winning if the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] was pushed to the limits was around 95%.

If he fought with someone, let's say from entirely different Dimension with zero knowledge about the opponent, power system, abilities and anything else that opponent may or may not use, then the use of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] in such situation wasn't relly that great.

However, the downside was that the consumption of the Celestial Force for the use of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] was big. Yhwach had initially thought that the Skills worked just by himself, he already learned this with the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore].

In such a case, depending on [Almighty] was a much better solution.

That was a misconception that the Skills were not using any energy, which was a fatal one, as they needed fuel.

They needed Magicules to function properly.

It is like fuel to the engine, so the car can start and move.

And the consumption of the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], was staggering if one was using the Ultimate Skill for a prolonged amount of time.

"So... will something happen aside from these things that began shining just now?"

Valiana asked from the side, as she was observing the procedure. Yhwach wanted to throw something at her because she was doing something that he had forbidden her to do several times, disrupting him when he was conducting the ritual.

He decided not to pay attention to her as she stuck out her tongue at him in protection as he was ignoring her. he controlled the ritual, which already started harvesting the Life Force, Blood Essence, and Soul Essence from the captured Devils.

The process was relatively slow because in the middle of the process was Level 5 High Ultimate-Class Devil. The amount of Mana that was being extracted from the five devils was staggering, but the truly valuable thing was their Life Force and Blood Essence, which started congregating in two spheres above the refinement ritual.

One could see with the naked eye how the bodies of the devils were decomposing in real time. For some, with a weaker stomach, this would certainly be a rather disgusting scene in front of their eyes.

Surprisingly or not, Valiana didn't avert her eyes as she continued looking at the ritual toward the end. In truth, he wasn't that much surprised, as he then activated another part of the Runic Matrix, when he started exacting the Soul Essence of the Devils...

However, this was slightly problematic because some of them had taints on their Souls, meaning the quality of their Soul Essence would be slightly diluted, which was rather disappointing because it would lower the effects of the procedure overall.

Nevertheless, he continued with the procedure as he controlled the ritual refinement of the Life Force, Blood Essence, and Soul Essence, and through the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore], he directed them toward the stasis pod, where Kuroka was frozen.

Soon enough, under his control, the Essences started flooding toward the crystal floating above the stasis pod. The crystal was his personal invention. Its sole purpose was to assimilate the Life Force, Blood Essence, and Soul Essence, injecting the merged product between the three things that he was extracting from the Devils.

If it had been injected into her body over time, it would have had much better results. The only thing that remained after letting her body and Soul heal was to remove the Evil Piece from her body.

"And it's done."

Yhwach muttered as he finished redirecting the last bits of energy that were obtained from the ritual, as the bodies of the devils decomposed and flew toward the floating crystal, where they were refined and assimilated by the crystal and would be used to heal Kuroka.

"That was rather anticlimactic, you know?"

Valiana appeared behind him as she muttered because, for her, it was a rather boring outcome. She thought that something flashier would happen, but...

"Well, sorry that very advanced usage of the Ritualistic Magic in combination with Magic Technology has disappointed our resident tomboy. And don't you have some unfortunate dummies to bully?"

Yhwach retorted as he wasn't really in the mood for her antics. He didn't understand in the first place why she even wanted to be here and not destroy the property somewhere on Mount Kailash in the first place.

"And yet you still love me..."

During the time they got together, she really learned how to push his buttons, probably too well, much to his liking. 

"Nevertheless, it would take some time before she would be compelled to recurrence. Once she achieves complete recuperation, I can start the final aspect of the process before waking her up."

He walked up to the floating crystal as a small Magic Circle appeared on his hand as he cast an analysis spell on the floating crystal and used the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] to make a comprehensive analysis on the result of the ritual.

<Task Accepted.>

<The approximate time of the analysis is 2 minutes and 47 seconds.>

Yhwach nodded as he let the [Ultimate Skill Hastur the Lord of the Unspeakable Lore] do its job as he turned his attention to Valiana as she was looking straight at him, knowing what he wanted to do afterward.

"You want to remove the Evil Piece in her body, don't you?"

He nodded as it was indeed something that he not only wanted to do, but he needed to do it. The existence of the Evil Piece was a Damocles sword that was hanging above her head still, not to mention having something in her very own soul...

It was something very dangerous and stupid.

"Obviously... while removing the Evil Piece from her body won't reverse her to her original species, and she would lose access to the Evil Piece. Considering that she was reincarnated into the devil using the Bishop Piece, she would lose access to the Magic Enhancement, though in the long term, such a loss is abysmal. The real thing is, as long as the Evil Piece is in her Soul, all things that are needed would be the direct access to the System that manages them, and it could self-destruct. She wouldn't really implosion of her very own Soul."

Yhwach got his hands on a few Evil Pieces and conducted extensive research on them, knowing that they were extremely dangerous. But at the same time, he had to admire Ajuka's genius because he invented a really ingenious way to enslave people to the will of their Master.

Reincarnated Devils were slaves in all but name.

"You know... the Evil Pieces are also ingrained with Loyalty Charms, several types of Mind Magic and other things so that the ensalved being would develop a very favourable impression of their Master. Breaking through these Enchantments on the Evil Piece requires tremendous willpower and also some luck. At the same time, while I don't think that anyone would be able to access Beelzebub's System, the problem is..."

Yhwach made a pause because while he didn't have much of a favourable impression of the Devils, it was not like he had actually cared. It was just that they stood on two different sides, and he, as a member of the "God Community", needed to hate Devils for their Evil pieces as they were stealing souls, worshippers and talents.

"If the Evil Piece is left in her body, it's just a matter of time until it is classified as Stray Devil, and then the failsafe will give and attempt to drive her mad and transform her into a monster. If it's left, she would be suppressing the Evil Piece and its Corruption for the rest of her life, or until she transcended Level 7, became a Cosmic Lifeform, and basically expulsed the Evil Piece on her own without any side effects."

The main reason behind the creation of Stray Devils was the Corruption in the Evil Piece that was ingrained in its very own fundamental nature. In the case that something went wrong and the slavve betrayed the master, the Evil Piece would release the Corruption and start corrupting the Reincarnated Devil into the Stray Devil.

A literal monster, their bodies would morph into the monstrous horrors that were worse than anyone's deepest nightmares; they would lose all of their rationality and mind, becoming beings that cared for nothing but destruction.

So, the Evil Piece in her soul needed to be extracted as soon as possible in case the Pure-Blooded Devils attempted to do something.

While he doubted that they would be able to obtain direct access to the Ajuka's System, he wasn't ruling out some underhanded methods of gaining access to the System that was managing the Evil Pieces.

***

Divine Realm of the Hindu Pantheon, Mount Kailash, Around the Same Time

During the time when Yhwach was doing his own thing, his father Shiva was meeting with the guest that came from a rather considerable distance to meet with him. And he was even a bit surprised, because he didn't expect that from the number of possibilities, that the one in which they would come would be the one that would come to fruition.

He observed the God that came from the Greek Pantheon, Poseidon, one of the 12 Olympians and King of Atlantis, who was sitting across him. It was really surprising, because from the possible futures, this was one of the least probable that he had seen. 

The Greek Gods were pretty arrogant overall, more than typical Gods.

Olympians even more so.

Despite their rather meager strength, in fact.

High-God with Divine Rank 19.

But that was just based on his Divine Energy.

The real combat prowess would be much lower.

Most of the Greek Gods were not for being warriors or combatants; many of them just relied on their Divine Power and used their Divine Authorities to overpower their foes...

It's a rather barbaric approach.

Though...

Shiva knew that with almost no Dimensional Suppression from the World Laws, it was easy for the people in the Draconci Deus to achieve very high destructive prowess. 

"So, why have you come such a distance... Poseidon?"

Obviously, this was just false politeness because the God of Destruction knew exactly why he had come.

"I need someone to protect my son and find the true lightning thief of my brother's Master Bolt. And who would be better than someone from the most powerful Pantheon in the Draconic Deus, backed by the might of not only Hindus, but also Asgard and the Celestial Court?"

Poseidon was a middle-aged man with sea-blue hair and eyes, he had some wrinkles over his face, but those were mostly from the stress and not the old age like many would assume.

Shiva knew that somebody had stolen Master Bolt. 

An Ultra-Divine Tool and Divine Symbol of Power that belonged to Zeus, even though Indra always complained that it was an utter waste in his hands, as the Heavenly Emperor was looking at the Master Bolt of Zeus with unhidden greed in fact.

At the same time, he wasn't really surprised that Poseidon had Demigod, even though he, Zeus, and Hades took an Oath on the River Styx that they would not sire any more Demigods.

"Something like that could be arranged... but what will we obtain in exchange?"

Obviously, even though he already told his son to take his band of troublemakers and go to America to investigate the situation, that was something that Poseidon didn't really need to know.

If there was an opportunity to make some profit and obtain benefits on the Greeks and Olympians due to their own stupidity, then it was only welcomed. Despite all of their faults, the Greek Pantheon was pretty rich, richer than most of the factions in the Draconic Deus.