“The gatekeeper of immortality…” Arad started thinking, “What about vampires? We’re immortal.”

“Age immortal, you still can be killed. True immortality is when you don’t age, can’t be killed, and won’t grow insane for the long life.” Hati looked at Arad with a smile, “The Tarrasque was an immortal since long before Gracie came to power. She was a spark of life force, and so Gracie never robbed her immortality. The over-god is the world itself, so she is outranked by him. And I’m quite special, I’m not exactly immortal, but eternal. Those are close enough to be similar in effect but different in the fundamentals of their nature.”

As Arad couldn’t understand a word of what she was saying, he decided to give up for the time being and put catching that shadow drakaina on his list of priorities, since it’s directly related to Mira’s survival. Even though he can punch lesser gods like Korah and kill demi-gods, the upper ranks of the gods seem to boast such a vast and ineffable power that even he can’t wrap his head around.

Lyla looked at Arad, “But, if that place is filled with succubi as Hati said, won’t you be in danger by going there?” The common knowledge of the world was that succubi are the predators of men and they could drain them dead in seconds, incubi are the reverse.

“I’ll be fine.” Arad replied, “I got Virgo.’

“That won’t help.” Hati said from the side, “Virgo won’t help you against those succubi, they don’t care.” She looked at him with a passive face.

“What?” Arad gasped.

“You’ve heard me. Becoming a woman is useless against them. Your only choice is to grow strong enough to fend them off. But you should be safe the moment you step into the shadow palace. So, speed might be key. The moment you enter the succubus kingdom, fly straight to the shadow palace and never stop.”

“If they live close to the queen…” Tina looked at Hati now that she figured something out. Hati nodded, “Yeah. They are far more powerful than normal succubi. I would suggest you put a bit more work into fending those kinds of monsters. They won’t dare to do anything inside Gracie’s palace, so that’s your only safe spot.”

Hati stood and started walking toward the door, “This should be enough for today. For now, you’ll need to focus on training to absorb the overgod’s dead heart. Getting that bit of strength would be a welcome help to your arsenal.”

Arad stood with Lyla and Tina, “So the problem seems to be far deeper…” He looked at his shadow… “Zia, do you have some time?”

From behind him, Zia emerged in her nun’s uniform. She swiftly turned to face him and knelt, “I’m at your order, My Blood Lord.”

“Short story, I want to buff Mira’s divine power as quickly as possible. If it’s possible to get her close to a true god, I’d like that to be the case. Seven months from now, she might die when giving birth as we expect the child to absorb most of her divine magic when being born.” He quickly explained.

Zia started thinking for a second in silence.

“Can you help?” Lyla looked at her.

“All of the vampires do worship her and Eris alongside Arad regularly; I think we’re maxed on what we can provide through normal means.” While the vampires worship Arad as their blood lord, they do lump Mira and Eris with him; but even with that Arad doesn’t seem to gain any divine magic from them, but the opposite happens, they get power from him. Mira and Eris are the reverse, they get worshipped and also gain divine power from the vampires.

“She’s a demi-goddess of greed.” Tina said, “Won’t she get more divine power by indulging in greed?”

Arad scratched his chin, “Raising the prices of her furniture and trying to amass wealth, the greedier she gets, the stronger her divine magic would be…” For Mira whose main role was to support Arad and everyone else, her good nature stood in her way of growing stronger. She is the complete opposite of a greedy woman, she is generous.

Upon realizing that, something seemed to click in Arad’s head as he gasped, calling to Hati who was about to leave the room. “Wait! You said the stronger gods are most of the time dualities. Like Gracie being life and death…”

“Indeed.” She stopped and looked back at him, replying with a curious gaze.

Upon getting the confirmation, Arad could conjure a possible plan, a plan that sounded too insane to even be possible. “Does that mean I can pull generosity out of greed? Just like how all life ends up in death and how death can kickstart a new life?”

“That I don’t know.” Hati replied, “But try it, who knows, you might achieve something great.”

***

As Arad returned to the living room with Lyla and Tina, Mira rushed toward him. “Is everything okay?”

Lyla looked at her, “It’ll probably be simpler if I explained it. Arad would solve it, so come with me.” Lyla dragged Mira away so they could talk, and Arad took his seat with Lucia, Matilda, and Selina. He had kept them waiting for a while.

“Sorry, I’ve kept you waiting.” He reached forward and grabbed the stack of papers that Lucia had laid on the table. Where he was calm, and Selina was quite exhausted from having to wait for him, Lucia and Matilda were both a bit afraid and worried.

Lucia already knows how powerful Arad is, and she was surprised to see him growing stronger and larger, the speed at which he was advancing was terrifying. Matilda on the other hand had seen Arad racing Selina, their goddess of the hunt. Knowing that he has that much power stored and never shows it off filled her heart with awe, respect, and fear.

As Arad went through the pages and read them, Tina poured him a large mug of tea. “Here you go.”

“Thank you.” He took a sip from his tea and put the papers down. “That’s quite the work. Almost fifty different mixtures.”

“The natural diversity of medical and effective herbs here is quite expansive. It’ll be a waste not to get familiar with them, especially since trade with the beast kingdom is about to start. I want the students to get a head start on other alchemists so they can score some jobs.” Lucia replied with a stern face. Since all those new herbs are going to make it toward the human kingdom just now, the number of alchemists who could work with them would be almost non-existent.

“So, by working with the alchemists of the beast kingdom to teach the students, they’ll be the only ones capable of making full use of the new herbs.” Arad smiled, “That’s a good plan. When do I need to get those finished?”

“Before we leave.” Lucia replied, “Everyone else is also working on them and they’ll be doing so for the rest of our stay. Can you finish them, with whatever you’re doing here?” Arad thought about it, thanks to his training with Kayden, he barely had time to spare. What little he gets he must spend either looking for food or resting, otherwise, it’s very likely for him to get killed in training. As simple as it might look, Kayden’s main job was pushing Arad to the limit. If Arad suddenly gets weaker due to inadequate rest or food and falls below Kayden’s expectations, the training load will crush him.

“I think I can manage…” Arad leaned back, “But I don’t how I’ll get it done. Probably on the last day or…” He wanted to get Aisha to do it, but she’s nowhere to be seen, he’ll have to ask freewebnσvel.cѳm

Hati about her.

“With how fast you can make potions, can’t you finish them tomorrow?” Selina stared at him.

“Don’t ask the impossible.” Arad sighed.

“Aron, see her?” Matilda pointed at Selina, “She only talks like this in front of you. Anywhere else, she’s too shy to even lift her head up,”

“It’s not like that!” Selina cried, almost breaking her neck as she turned to glare at Matilda.

Arad watched them argue with a gentle smile. Mira was laughing in the back as she had just finished speaking with Lyla, and even Merlin had joined her… peaceful…Arad couldn’t ask for more… But he couldn’t shake the thought out of his head.

When Arad fought Fungus, Merida’s demon lord and had Doma take over, he had seen the

future through her curse… As the days moved and he got closer to attempting to absorb the overgod’s dead heart, that scene of the grave kept flashing before his eyes… At which point in the future was it, and to whom that grave belonged? The image he could recall looked as hazy as dreams; he couldn’t read whose name was written on the grey gravestone. ^Could it be…Mira’s grave…^ Two veins popped on Arad’s forehead as his expression quickly shifted into a frown. The ground started shaking as everyone failed to breathe, the monsters in the jungle already started fleeing out of the area, but not before the beast men could feel the dreadful terror that emerged out of nowhere.

Hati looked at him with a single eye. Arad’s face had turned as black as the night’s sky with his eyes burning purple, his figure deformed like dancing shadows due to the extreme magic rushing across his body. When enraged, Arad’s mere presence was heavy enough to force the monsters to run away, and not even Astrid and Frida could breathe before him.

That was the monster pretending to be a human sitting among them.

“Arad, what are you thinking about?” Mira smacked Arad on the back of his head, knocking him back to reality. He blinked and looked back at her, “Mira?”

“Yeah, relax a bit. You’re scaring them…” When Arad looked forward, everyone had a terrified face, they looked as pale as snow, barely managing to breathe.

“Sorry… Just remembered something old.” He said, looking down at his shattered tea cup.