Chapter 40: Level Up

Lars who was grievously wounded sat down for a quick second.

"Hah, hah, I have to get out of here. Arcanum really is the shit." He winced, looking at his torso that was missing a huge chunk.

His skill, Typhon started to die down. And he could now feel the wounds from Rudra's divine lightning.

He hissed, pouring some elixirs that Airmid made.

And he regenerated slowly, but surely. "I have to go back to the wheat manor."

Lars put on a cloak and he slowly walked towards the wheat manor.

He incurred a wound that would be death for most people, but he had a grin on his face.

"Gods can die... Imagine all the things we can do?" He limped back home.

__Babel__

The gods were in an uproar, everybody was whispering with each other.

And someone was extremely fidgety. Though she was trying to hide it.

'I can feel it, Lars was the one behind that incident...' Demeter couldn't help but be paranoid.

Through her Ichor on his back, she could feel another god's divinity.

It had a feeling of a storm. 'Lars won't target gods willy nilly... It's already established, he isn't in good terms with Loki, but nothing happened to her.'

Demeter concluded that it wasn't just a random attack.

And Loki is an extremely easy target. You would just have to wait for the majority of their strongest members to go on an expedition.

Kill her and the ones in the dungeon would die. While the surface dwellers will be helpless.

'Who is it? The one associated with storms that is here in gekai. And got into his bad side enough to kill them.' Demeter thought of the candidates.

Something then clicked inside of her mind. A member of evilus. 'Rudra...'

Demeter hoped that he won't do something so reckless again.

"Do you think it's true?" Hephaestus asked her and Demeter nodded.

"You've seen the light shatter. A divine spirit was prevented from returning to tenkai." Demeter sighed.

"That's true. Every god could feel it. Its arcanum was stopped by something." Astraea nodded.

"Let us wait for the investigations." Demeter pointed in front and Hermes appeared.

"Hermes, why exactly did you use your arcanum while here on gekai?" Loki asked seriously.

Hermes never uses his arcanum for something else than televising war games.

"Something out there is on the loose, you all heard it." Hermes frowned and the gods murmured.

"What about it, Hermes?" Freya asked arrogantly. After all, she has the strongest familia in Orario.

It was a common misconception that Loki had the strongest one, but that was simply not true.

"I believe it was the one responsible for a god being extinguished." Hermes said with a grim expression.

The gods were in an uproar. Some were terrified, while some were interested. Like Loki and Freya.

But the one who was dealing with it the worst is Demeter.

"Are you okay, Demeter?" Astraea asked her in worry.

'Curses, they can even see how distressed I am...' Demeter smiled wryly at Astraea.

"I'm fine dear, don't worry. Just a bit scared for everyone." Demeter played it off.

"Don't worry, I think this is a ploy by evilus." Hephaestus squinted her eye.

"What makes you say that?" Demeter and Astraea asked her.

"Maybe, they have created a curse strong enough to not let a god ascend?" Hephaestus theorized.

"That may be a good conjecture, but we have to at least know what happened. The Hermes familia and Ganesha familia will lead an investigation." Hermes furrowed his brows.

He was stumped. And even when he used his arcanum, he didn't find anything.

"I am Ganesha! Do not worry, we will find the culprit and put them to justice!" Ganesha flexed.

"Well, I hope you do." Astraea smiled at them and Demeter sighed in relief inside of her mind.

The impromptu meeting of the gods finished and Demeter went back to her manor.

"Yo, how did the meeting go?" Lars smiled at her, sweating heavily from his injuries.

"L-Lars... So it really was you. And you survived against arcanum. You're really something else." Demeter walked up to him.

"Sorry, he had to go." Lars explained, but before he could continue. Demeter hugged him.

"You're not mad that your child is the very first godslayer?" Lars looked up at her and Demeter pinched his cheek.

"Foolish child, as you've said. Rudra had to go. And I don't particularly mind his passing." Demeter snorted.

"Wow, I forgot you're from the Greek pantheon. Of course you wouldn't really care much." Lars chuckled.

"I was just a bit nervous upon learning what you did, silly boy. You could've gotten caught. Hermes even used his arcanum." Demeter frowned.

"Well, he didn't. Did he? That's why he called for a meeting in the first place." Lars smirked.

"What am I going to do with you?" Demeter sighed and Lars pointed at his back.

"Level me up, I can feel it. I can finally be level 2. What a rigged system this is." Lars rolled his eyes.

"Fine, let us see." Demeter pricked her finger and put some of her ichor on his back.

"I'm not even surprised anymore." Demeter shook her head in exasperation at his stats.

Lars Johansson; Level 1

STR: ?2000 (2105)

AGI: ?2000 (2102)

DEX: ?2000 (2353)

VIT: ?2000 (2267)

MAG: ?2000 (3078)

Skills:

Septem Peccata Mortalia:

> Superbia

> Gula

> Ira

> Avaritia

> Invidia

> ?

> ?

Infinitum Spatium

Godslayer: Even other gods cannot slay each other. The birth of he who slaughters the divine, heralds the world's end.

Increases damage to all sources of divinity massively and decreases the effectivity of arcanum against the divine enemy of heaven.

Magic:

Stoicheiódis Mageía: The user can manipulate the elements. The sky is the limit, only their mind dictates what can be done, and what cannot.

"Hmmm, good. I have a skill to kill gods now." Lars chuckled. Demeter hit him lightly.

"Don't joke about that, stop killing gods." Demeter was anxious about the future.

"I won't, if they don't give me a reason to." Lars said seriously.

"Hah... Fine, I will level you up now. But be warned, I don't know what will happen next. Even Alfia's status has never been reached before." Demeter began with the level up.

Converting Rudra's divinity as his high quality excelia, Lars began to level up.

"Argh! I feel like I'm going to explode!" Lars groaned.

"T-this..." Demeter was able to see his soul. And it was like a rainbow.

Similar to his symbols of the deadly sins, the middle of Lars' soul was covered by 5 colors.

Gold, pink, red, green, and yellow. The middle was a sphere, a mix of white and black. And she interpreted its meaning.

'A fragile balance... I have to guide him to keep it that way.' Demeter's decision on making him not turn out to be a maniac solidified.

She wasn't going to be a bystander now. Especially after what he did to Rudra.

"You accumulated too much excelia, Lars. Excelia is divinity that grows, that's why it's so hard to raise."

'His soul is cracking... Of course it would, trying to absorb a divine spirit while being mortal would kill anyone instantly.'

"Falna is like a bed of soil that excelia takes root in. And it slowly grows until a mortal becomes a demigod." Demeter explained.

"Why is it so hard on me though?" Lars gritted his teeth through the pain.

Thinking of Alfia who was level 8, meaning her excelia was much higher than his.

"Your skill that I hid is fighting with Rudra's divinity. Typhon." Demeter showed him the paper for his stats.

"Damn... Why didn't you tell me first?" Lars clicked his tongue.

"I... I was afraid, wouldn't have you?" Demeter raised a point and he nodded once he thought about it.

"I think that your skill Typhon is still in its infancy stage. And it can't hold Rudra's divinity.

Not that you could hold all of it in the first place anyways. When his divine spirit died, a lot of his divinity leaked out already. Or you would've exploded." Demeter informed him.

"That's crazy..." Lars started sweating due to the pain as he absorbed the bits and pieces he got from devouring Rudra.

"The key should be in your other skill I can't understand though. The pink part of your soul is glowing brightly. It's filtering Rudra's divinity." Demeter checked his soul.

"Ahhh, that makes sense. Ugh, what's my developmental abilities? I'm about to pass out." Lars asked and Demeter sighed.

She gave him a list of his possible DA's and he skimmed through it.

And the one that he really liked is called slaughterer.

"Put that one." Lars pointed at it and Demeter picked it as his DA.

"G'night." Lars passed out on her bed and Demeter smiled softly at him.

"I guess he's still the same. Slaughterer huh, this has never appeared before." Demeter smiled softly.

Slaughterer I: Increases parameters against all beings that possess life and magic.

"Isn't he built for pure combat? Even though he's so sweet?" Demeter looked outside.

Lars ordered all kinds of farm equipment for the familia.

And Airmid turned them into magical tools. So they just needed some mana to function.

The older members who can't do things like when they were younger were happy.

And the young members could spend their time more leisurely due to the efficiency.

"Killing a god is like the complete opposite of what you'd expect from him." Demeter was worried.

And she remembered his soul. The convoluted balance of it. "May he live prosperously." Demeter hoped.

After a few days of not seeing him, his group also visited him. Except for Alfia who trusted that he was fine.

"Ais? What are you doing here?" Tiona asked Ais who was loitering around the front gate of the wheat manor.

"Lars... He was about to do something dangerous. I'm sure about it." Ais was worried.

"He's always prepared to do something outrageous." Airmid sighed and the amazons had wry expressions.

"That's right, we should let him relax for a few days. Maybe he's just preparing something?" Tione opened the gate.

Ais didn't come with though, because she wasn't invited.

"What are you doing, Ais? Let's go. You're worried about him, right?" Tiona pulled her and Ais was surprised.

"Yeah, you're our friend. Come on, let's go." Tione also gestured for her to follow.

"Friends huh?" Ais nodded slowly and she had a smidgeon of a smile on her face.

Everyone then went up to Demeter, asking for Lars.

"Lars huh? He's resting right now. He's injured." Demeter said with a frown.

"Injured? It couldn't be that bad, right?" Tiona asked.

And when they entered Demeter's room, they gasped at the sight of him.

"H-how is he alive?" Airmid teared up and she used the strongest healing she could.

It helped with his regeneration, but he was still in bad shape. His pained expression disappeared though.

"Yo... You guys look healthy." Lars gave them a smile and the amazons immediately scrambled to hug him.

"W-what happened to you!?" Tione cried immediately and he smiled wryly.

"Ais knows, you didn't tell them?" Lars looked at Ais.

"He killed Rudra..." Ais revealed. "The Rudra familia? How can you lose to wimps like that?" Tiona was mistaken.

"No... Rudra." Ais corrected her and they looked at her in confusion for a good second.

"By Rudra... You mean!?" Airmid looked at her in disbelief.

"Yeah, I'm a bonafide godslayer. Pretty neat right?" Lars chuckled and they paled.

"You what!?" The amazons shouted immediately while Ais frowned deeply.

It was now confirmed. He is a godslayer, the first to be made. And most likely, the very last as well.

"What? That punk ass bitch Rudra had to get what was coming for him." Lars huffed and he started coughing.

"Sorry, missing half a lung right now and a part of my heart, I'm pretty sure." Lars lied down again.

"Y-you... You crazy son of a!" Tione hugged him tightly.

"Don't do anything crazy like that again! You hear me!?" Tione shouted.

He was about to joke around, but he saw their expressions. They looked to be begging.

"Hah, I can't promise that. But I will promise this. I will never die and leave you girls alone. After all, we haven't even reached NG+ yet." Lars patted their heads one by one.

"Un, don't die. We still haven't killed the one eyed black dragon yet." Ais nodded at him.

"Yeah, that too." Lars chuckled and they started to calm down.

"What's next then? You're too injured to dungeon dive." They asked him.

"I have the stats of an almost maxed out level 4. Though the boosts of level ups would make me lose out a bit. So I'll be fine resting for now." Lars sighed.

There's a reason why higher leveled adventurers are thought to be unbeatable by lower level ones.

Level ups gave you a boost in your overall strength as well. Slowly moving up the ranks until you reach the realm of the gods.

It pained him to say it. After all, the grind should never stop.

"Let's build Monstro into a fortress. I'll just act as your supporter for now. Raise a lot of money too." Lars smiled at them.

"Good, you should rest." Tiona sniffled and he nodded.

Lars then had an idea pop into his mind. "I know what we're gonna do for a good while."

He grinned at them and they were at least happy that he won't just continue going to the dungeon like an idiot.

__

Thanks for reading everyone, ciao.