Chapter 85: The Goddess Expected a Bigger and Harder Reaction!? (bonus - )

Chapter 85: Chapter 85: The Goddess Expected a Bigger and Harder Reaction!? (bonus Chapter)

Evelisse lay sprawled across the couch, one hand gripping a snack bag, the other white-knuckling the remote.

On tge TV screen, the protagonist powered up mid-battle, as his hair changed color.

"Come on..."

The villain transformed, doubling in size.

"Come on,"

"YES!" She shoved a handful of chips into her mouth in celebration.

Then the protagonist got punched through a mountain.

She paused, chewing thoughtfully.

"...He’s probably fine."

She reached for another handful as her fingers hit empty bag.

Her eyes widened in slow motion horror.

"...Seraphina!"

"What?" came the distant reply from somewhere in the estate.

"I’m out of snacks!"

"You’ve eaten enough for one afternoon, Eve."

"That is not an acceptable answer!"

Seraphina’s makeshift lab looked like a small, contained war zone, vials, dried herbs, monster parts, magical plants of various kinds, other resources and ingredients, three cauldrons, and one very determined succubus in an apron and protective gloves.

"Three drops," she murmured, adding exactly three. "Five seconds." She counted them out. "Now the Bloodroot extract."

She added it.

The liquid turned an alarming shade of purple.

She froze. "...That’s not supposed to happen."

POOF.

Purple smoke spread across the room.

She coughed. "Why does this keep happening when I am doing everything right?"

Evelisse appeared in the doorway, waving the smoke away from her face. "Did you make poison again?"

"No, and when have I ever made poison?"

Behind her, a small glass bottle exploded.

POP.

Evelisse looked at the shattered glass, unimpressed. "That’s very convincing."

Seraphina’s cheeks went pink. "It was an experimental failure."

"That’s a fancy word for poison."

"Evelisse."

"I’m just saying."

Seraphina sighed, then noticed Evelisse’s eyes had drifted to one particular bottle, unbroken, glowing faintly blue like a sports drink.

"No."

"I didn’t even say anything."

"You were thinking about drinking it, weren’t you?"

"...Maybe."

"Absolutely not."

Evelisse pouted, but backed off hearing the horrors Seraphina said would happen if she drank it.

Up stairs and down the hall, Aurelia sat on the edge of her bed holding an staring at a single small vial. The last of the five Epic Rank Mana Vein Restoration Elixirs Lucien had left her.

Years of shattered mana veins, years of a body that had betrayed her at the worst possible moment. Years of watching everyone around her grow stronger while she declined, continuously, since the moment her cousins had crippled her.

Her fingers tightened around the bottle.

’It’s the last one.’

She uncorked the vial as she tilted her head and downed its contents.

For a moment, nothing occurred making her think it lost its selects after taking a few of them, but then.

BOOM!

A tremendous surge of mana tore through her, as she sat bolt upright and as pain flooded every nerve at once, but a different pain than she’d known for years, a pain that meant it was being repaired instead of damaged.

Her shattered mana vein pathways reconnected, one after another as the cracks on rhem healed and closed of, dozens, then hundreds, then the thousands in her.

At the same time her mana core trembled violently, and the cracks that had sat there increasing for so long that she’d stopped noticing them began sealing shut.

"Come on," she whispered, her hands shaking as she closed her eyes. "Just a little more."

The final fractured section of her mana vein network knit itself whole as the last of the cracks in her mana core sealed shut.

Silence fell over the room, as she opened her eyes slowly and raised one hand, feeling mana flowing through her, as mana gathered around her palm smoothly without any leaks or failure with no pain, blockage and no resistance.

She’d nearly forgotten what that felt like. A small crimson flame flickered to life above her palm, and her breath caught.

"I..." A laugh escaped her, soft and disbelieving. "...I can cultivate again. " She hurriedly checked her mana core immediately, feeling her own cultivation Rank, and where she stood.

’Peak A-Rank.’

She paused.

’Peak A, not Peak SS, can’t say I didn’t expect it to fall.’ Her rank before everything had been taken from her. She looked at her palm a moment longer, then smiled.

"I don’t care."

Her eyes hardened with something fierce and certain.

"I can climb th Ranks again."

Her fist closed. "I can finally climb again, with nothing stopping me." For the first time in years, Aurelia felt like herself.

Back in the endless white void, the Goddess spread her arms wide, silver hair drifting on air that didn’t exist, crimson light blazing behind her in a genuinely impressive display.

"It is I," she’d declared. "The one. The only. The Goddess of Blood!"

She waited, waited for the shock, the awe and possibly some light trembling, xonsideri g he was a Vampire.

But Lucien just looked at her.

She waited longer thinking his mind had stalled, but nothing changed as her triumphant expression began to slip. "...?"

He kept staring.

She leaned forward slightly. "You’re not surprised?"

’Obviously she’s a goddess,’ Lucien thought, entirely unaware or maybe entirely unbothered by the fact this ridiculous Goddess could hear every word.

’She literally told me gods pick champions and that she created the dungeon, and that the dungeon she made gave me the Champion Token, the entire dungeon is blood-themed top to bottom, she can also read my mind. So what exactly was the twist supposed to be here?’

Her eye twitched hearing his thoughts.

’Also,’ he continued, ’why did she build up to that like she was revealing some ancient cosmic secret? Did she rehearse that pose and line?’

Her cheeks went faintly pink, and she looked away sharply. "...You’re supposed to react."

"To what?"

She glared at him and muttered. "At my awesomeness?"

’She totally rehearsed the pose,’ Lucien thought.

"I did NOT."

"I didn’t say anything." He said, hiding a laugh.

"You were thinking it very loudly."

"Just forget this." She composed herself, folding her hands infront of her chest as as her expression slid back into something more serious.

"So," she said. "Are you going to accept my offer and become my Champion?"

"I’m still not sure."

"Why not?"

"Because I don’t actually know what I’d be agreeing to, sure you explained what the Champion Trials but I would be involving myself, as a mortal with God’s. "

She considered that, then smiled, slower this time and more deliberate. "Then perhaps I should give you a better reason."

She raised one finger, and crimson light began gathering at the tip.

"If you become my Champion, I’ll give you something you desperately need."

His expression shifted at he response. "What?"

"Something that will help fix you."

"...Fix me?" he repeated.

"You don’t know, do you."

"Know what?"

"That something’s wrong with you."

’Something’s did always feel off,’ he thought, unable to stop the memory surfacing, his mana affinity stubbornly at B-Rank despite a Mythical bloodline and a Divine talent, and only that high because of a trait he’d stolen from a slime, of all things so something had never quite added up.

"Can you get to the point, what’s wrong with me?" he asked, quieter now.

She considered how to explain it, then simply said, "Letd just say that your bloodline isn’t stable, as that’s what it basically is."

His expression tightened hearing that.

"Also the blood flowing in your veins doesn’t fully belong to you."

"...What?"

"Yep, part of it is mine, and not like you being a descendant, not that I have no, but that it is literally mine, quite fascinating, if I have to say."

She explained, unhurried, that long ago she’d left several drops of her own divine blood with the vampire royal family, a gift, mostly symbolic, decorative and unempowered on purpose. But even an unblessed and simple drop of blood from a god carried something far beyond ordinary blood, especially from her as blood was her thing.

The vampire royal family at that time had eventually distributed those drops among the highest noble houses, one to each Duke level family and above.

"I can feel," she said, "that at least one of those drops was used somewhere in your creation, your birth, most likely."

Lucien went very still.

"And that’s not the most interesting part, it’s not the first time I’ve seen something similar."

"There’s more?"

"There’s another divine blood in you," she said. "Not mine but another brings, and someone who stands equal to us God’s, maybe a God themselves, could be anything honestly, as its quite good at hiding itself from inspection."

His eyes widened.

"I can’t identify whose sadly," she added, sounding genuinely, personally offended by her own ignorance. "Which is rare, extremely rare."

"And both of the bloods are not sitting quietly together in you," she continued, circling him slowly. "They are quietly fighting inside you, constantly, so your body has been their battlefield your whole life, though the other one has always had the advantage since my blood was a simple drop with no blessing or anything, it also appears to have intentionality stayed Dormant for some reason, otherwise you would have a Divine Blodlike related to it, instead of a Mythical bloodline related to me."

"How am I alive then, considering both are blood of God’s. "

"Yes," she said, delighted rather than reassuring. "That’s the fascinating part. I genuinely don’t understand how, in this case you should have died as the other one doesn’t appear to like you, it could have absorbed mine and killed you."

She listed it off, almost gleeful. "Unstable bloodline, but functional. Two warring God bloods, and you haven’t torn apart. A working cultivation base despite all of it. A Divine Talent on top of everything else. Your body’s compensated in ways I’ve genuinely never seen."

She looked at him directly. "You’re extremely fascinating, little Lucien."

"That is not a comforting thing to hear."

"Unfortunately," she said, "that isn’t your only problem."

His stomach sank. "What else."

"Your soul."

She pointed at his chest.

"It isn’t right either."

Then at the rest of him.

"Neither is your body."

His eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"

"You wouldn’t understand."

"Try me."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because explaining it to a mortal without the framework to process it would accomplish nothing," she said. Then, with an infuriating little smile "So later okay."

That single word settled into Lucien’s chest like a stone.

She raised her hand, as two objects bloomed into being above her palm.

The first was a small crimson flower that looked like a mixture of a rose and a lotus, with Blood red petals and it was radiating an aura he couldn’t quite explain.

The second, an Elixir or potion with a translucent silver-white liquid inside the expensive looking bottle.

He knew, instinctively, that both were absurd and beyond any item he’d ever touched.

"One," she said, indicating the flower, "stabilizes and helps with your blood."

She gestured to the bottle. "And one repairs your soul."

His breath caught.

"One even being abive Mythical Rank, and the other Mythical Rank." she said, watching him closely. "And they are both yours, the moment you say yes."

She was smiling with total confidence, clearly expecting exactly one possible answer.

’She’s offering exactly what I need to fix myself,’ he thought. ’Something that could stabilize this mess inside me and something that might finally explain why I’ve always felt like I was running on borrowed parts.’

His hand curled slowly into a fist.

She waited, patient and certain of his answer.

"No."

Silence descended I the endless white void.

Her smile vanished entirely. "...Excuse me?"

"I said no."

Her crimson eyes went wide, the confidence draining out of her expression all at once, as curiosity replaced it.