Chapter 14

The short nap Momonga took was far from refreshing. The dreamless sleep gave little rest to his tired mind.

His vision returned to the outside world, and he straightened out in the chair he was napping in. There were five more skills that needed to be distributed, and most likely changed as well.

'I guess I can just go by floor order and pick Cocytus next.' There was little point in giving ultimate skill to Gargantua, as his rudimentary intelligence would most likely be insufficient to fully utilize it. Giving some entity control over the gigantic elemental wasn't worth the risk. Sure, Rubedo was, at least on the surface, completely loyal but that might not be the case for other entities.

'Hmm, I could get a cup of coffee before I start.' Of course, the delicious brew gave only a placebo effect since Momonga, as an undead, was immune to mind-altering substances.

He half expected Albedo to be the one who delivered the coffee, but this time Shion came into his office with a knock.

Momonga watched nervously as she slowly approached his table with the cup in her hands, walking on high heels. His worries proved unfounded as Shion managed to bring the cup to the table without falling. In fact, it seemed she has learned to walk with natural ease in the high-heeled boots she now wore.

"Here you go, Lord Momonga." She said with a smile and put the cup in front of him.

"Thank you, Shion, that will be all for now."

Shion bowed and walked out of the office while swinging her hips in a seductive manner. She even glanced back for a moment to see if Momonga's gaze was on her.

'I have no choice but to give in, do I? Even Pero and Buku are pushing me to have a relationship. I'll give it a thought later. Now I need to finish what I started.' Momonga mused as he took a few gulps of coffee and messaged Cocytus to come and receive a skill.

The Vermin Lord arrived mere moments after his presence was requested, and kneeled the moment he stood in Momonga's office.

"LORD MOMONGA, YOU CALLED?"

"Yes. Sit down and we can begin. You, as with most other floor guardians, will receive an ultimate skill." Momonga replied and motioned to the sofa.

"I AM HONORED TO RECEIVE SUCH A GIFT, LORD MOMONGA. I WILL USE IT TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY FOR THE BENEFIT NAZARICK." Cocytus said as he stood up and sat down on the guest sofa.

Without delay, Momonga gave him the skill that was made from the former world item, The Billion Blades. Same as in all previous cases, Cocytus also got an ultimate skill with a God name attached to it.

The Ultimate Skill, |Pallas, the God of War|, seemed a perfect fit for the fifth floor guardian.

Momonga quickly cut out the God's name while carefully trying to sense if someone was observing him. Predictably, the sense of being watched was still there.

The unique skills, |Weapons Master| and |Executioner|, were absorbed into the new skill and formed a sub-skill, |One With the Weapon|, which gave absolute mastery over any weapon that Cocytus chooses to wield. He also had a sub-skill, |Endless Weapons|, which let him summon as many weapons as he wanted. There was a hard limit on how many could be summoned simultaneously, but that limit was in the thousands.

Additionally, he also received a divine power boost and |Titan Form|.

Finally, the most powerful effect of the skill was the |Living Weapon|. This allowed Cocytus to give a golem form to any weapon in his possession, letting the weapon wield itself. Combined with |Endless Weapon|, he pretty much had a summonable golem army at his disposal, not to mention the wide variety of weapons in his inventory.

'I should pick out some additional legendary weapons from the treasury for him, just in case.' Momonga put a reminder for himself and dismissed Cocytus.

The next on the list were the elven twins. Keeping his promise, Momonga contacted Buku and let her know that he would be giving skills to her children next.

Aura, with skills like |Ranger| and |Beastmaster|, got an ultimate skill representing a Goddess of a similar disposition: |Artemis, the Goddess of Wilderness|.

Her first sub-skill, |Huntress|, was a superior version of |Ranger| and let her find prey no matter where it chose to hide, additionally giving access to a summoned bow of divine quality. The second, |Mistress of the Wilds|, was an improved version of |Beastmaster|, which not only allowed her to tame and augment animals to an even greater degree than before, but to create new life forms as well.

And finally, she received the similar boosts all other God series skills gave their owners.

'With her new skill, it would be possible to recreate animals from the earth and even fantasy settings. I will have to run some experiments with Aura in that regard.' Momonga mused as he put the finishing touches on the skill.

Same as his sister, Mare also received a skill that was an augmented version of his previous skillset. In his case, it was the ultimate skill, |Geb, The God of Earth|.

There, however, was one difference from all the previous ones. While the rest had God names connected to Greek mythology, Mare's was from the Egyptian mythos. In the end, it made little difference, as the name would be removed either way.

His two previous unique skills now became the sub-skills of |God of Earth|. |Earthwarden| was augmented to the |Master of Earth|, which at a rough estimate would let Mare cast at least a country-spanning earthquake. Also, the number of earth dragons and their overall power greatly increased. |Lord of Nature| became the |Master of Nature|, giving pretty much-unlimited power over all existing flora and nature-related spirits.

Mare also got the divine power boost, but there was another sub-skill that would've felt more fitting in Aura's possession; |Lord of Snakes|. A quick glance into an appropriate mythology book revealed that Geb was not only the God of earth and vegetation, but also snakes.

After Momonga was done with the elven twins, only two skills remained to be distributed.

The next and final floor guardian to receive a skill was Demiurge.

Split between two items, first being Avarice and Generosity and the second, Depiction of Nature and Society, Momonga decided to give the demon the latter, since Demiurge, as a more support and magic-oriented guardian, would benefit more from it than a melee fighter like Sebas.

The moment the skill was given to Demiurge, it transformed into the ultimate skill, |Phobos, the God of Nightmares|. In essence, the skill let Demiurge create his own illusionary realm where he would be an absolute ruler and anyone unable to resist his skill would be completely at his mercy.

And mercy was the last thing an enemy of Ulbert's creation should expect from him.

Unfortunately, Demiurge didn't receive any divine boosts with his skill. Momonga looked over the singular |God of Nightmares| core remaining after he had cut off the name. 'I guess I'll just have to copy the boosts from other God skills.'

He located Pero's skill and tried to make copies of the divine boosts but that ended up in failure. Yet, |Omniscience| gave another idea. Even if the boosts could not be copied, they could be recreated from scratch. Armed with the new knowledge, he set out to recreate the boosts, and it instantly became obvious that such a task required a ludicrous amount of energy.

After what felt like hours within his mind, but was just a fraction of a second to the outside world, Momonga had recreated the divine boost cores and added it to Demiurge's skill. This single act had consumed most of his energy reserves, which now needed to be replenished.

The end result was about the same as the original divine boost sub-skill and was a substantial increase in the demon's abilities.

Once he was finished with the skill, Momonga couldn't help but give the order. "Demiurge, under no circumstances are you allowed to test your skill on innocent denizens of Tempest."

"Of course, Lord Momonga. I would not dream to harm any of your subjects." Demiurge responded sincerely. "But I would be grateful if I could receive the test subjects from our adversaries when the opportunity arises."

"I will permit you to use our enemies for experimentation," Momonga said, his voice betraying tiredness.

'Just one more skill and I'm done.' Momonga reminded himself while fighting off extreme fatigue. 'When my energy reserves are back to full, I should do the same for my and Albedo's skill. That only leaves Pandora's Actor without an ultimate skill. But if cores can be recreated, maybe so can the entire skill. I will have to look into it.'

The final skill went to the head butler, Sebas. Just like his peers before him, he arrived in Momonga's office and received his gift. Though he was the only one Momonga didn't manage to convince to sit down.

Sebas also was the second one to not receive a skill named after a God from Greek mythos, but instead got one from Zoroastrianism. His ultimate skill, |Mithra, the God of Justice|, felt like a tribute to his creator, whose personality was adapted by the butler.

To Momonga's relief, Sebas received the divine boosts and there was no need to create another boost core. As for the sub-skills, the main one was |Judgement|, which allowed Sebas to gain full control of opponents and either execute or spare them depending on their transgressions.

Of course, anyone with an ultimate skill would be able to resist it and at best receive a fraction of the punishment.

The second ability was |Balance|, which let Sebas either give or take power, in a sense making him a mediator between Pero's and Buku's ultimate skills.

The moment Momonga was done with Sebas, he dismissed him. Even without a need to create another core, the work on the last skill had sapped out the last of his energy, making him beyond exhausted.

With an unsteady gaze, he retreated to his bedroom and closed the door. Taking the last few steps he approached the bed and fell face down, falling into a deep slumber.

‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›‹x›

Momonga opened his eyes and looked around. He was standing on a paved road of an unknown city covered in a thick mist.

'Is this a dream? It has to be?' He mused looking down. He has a human body. His old body, in fact. The only oddity was his left forearm being that of his undead form.

Momonga pinched his right hand with his left skeletal one. The pinch stung, leaving a red mark on his palm.

"Unworthy." "Thief." "She was not yours to take from me." Faint whispers came from the mist. Shadows moved around, whispering. Most of the whispers were unintelligible mumbles, but those which he understood repeated the same words.

"What have I taken that is not mine?" Momonga shouted in the mist.

There was no response. The shadows just continued whispering, moving about in the thick mist.

Momonga summoned a death knight but the moment his minion formed, he was grabbed by the mist and dissolved into a black puddle.

Unsure what to do next, Momonga sat down and closed his eyes, trying to wake up, but something was holding him within this dream. Some presence urged him to stand up and move forward.

Not seeing any other option, Momonga stood up and slowly walked the polished stone street surrounded by the thick mist with the shadows watching him.

As he walked, he heard more whispers that he understood. "Curious." "A new one among our midsts." "Not ready." "Mortality holds him." "Usurper." "Thief." "A clever one with a lot of potential within him." "He is the key." "He stands in front of the gate."

Whoever those shadows were, most of them didn't feel hostile. In fact, they gave him that same feeling of being watched he sensed when he was working on the skills.

"What are you?" He asked the moving shadows.

"Blind." "Cannot see us." "Mortal eyes blind him." "He will see in time." "Not ready." The whispers continued.

The shadows continued to whisper as he moved towards an unknown destination. Outlines of impossibly tall towers came through the mist from time to time, disappearing just as fast as they appeared.

How long did he wander through the misty city he could not even properly guess, it was impossible to tell. 'I need to find a way to wake up. Whatever this dream or nightmare was, I should not be here!'

Momonga lifted his skeletal hand and pinched his cheek as hard as he could but despite the pain, he still remained locked within the dream. "Where am I? Let me leave this place!" He shouted in the mist.

The shadows seemingly paid no attention to his increasing distress and whispered among themselves. Then, Momonga noticed a shadow in the shape of a bird emerging from the mists and landing in front of him.

The bird rapidly grew in size, assuming a form of a humanoid shadow that just hung in the air.

"Young one. You should not be here." The form whispered.

"I don't know how I got here. What is this place?" Momonga asked.

"A higher place. You are not ready to walk among us, young one. You are not ready to pick up the mantle of the one who left it in the dirt." The shadow whispered.

"How do I wake up?" Momonga asked. Only then did he notice that his voice sounded like that of Suzuki Satoru and not Momonga.

"You misunderstand. You need to fall asleep, not wake up to leave our realm."

"Fall asleep?"

The figure motioned at his right hand and said. "This one sleeps." then pointed at Momonga's left arm and added. "This one is awake. The one that did acts of a God, woke up."

Momonga lifted his left arm, looking at the white bones. 'I need to fall asleep to wake up. That doesn't make any sense. Maybe if I somehow get this hand to look like the other one then I could wake up.'

"Fall back to the dream, young one. Do not come back till you are ready to face us. We will wait for you." The shadow said, grabbing Momonga's hand.

The flesh rapidly covered the white bones of Momonga's hand as his vision instantly went dark.

A moment later, the dark flames ignited in his empty eye sockets as he groggily sat up in his bed. The first thing he noticed was a maid standing in front of his bed.

She broke into a wide smile, looking ecstatic. With tears welling up in her eyes, she said, "Lord Momonga! You are awake!"

"Yes, I am awake. Why are you in my bedroom?" Momonga asked. Until now, the bedroom was one of the few remaining places where he could enjoy solitude but it seems even that barrier was broken.

"I'm sorry but I'm here on Lady Buku's orders. You have been asleep for three days, my lord." The maid hastily explained with a deep bow.

"What?" Momonga jumped to his feet. "Tell everyone I'm fine, I just needed prolonged rest after working on skills." 'No one needs to know about the strange dream or whatever that was. From now on I should be more careful with my energy reserves.'

The maid ran out of his bedroom with Momonga slowly following. He barely got out of the bedroom when not only his two friends but also most of the floor guardians appeared in the guest area of his quarters.

Before he could even take in what just happened, he was tackled by Albedo and Shalltear, shortly followed by Shion, with all three hugging him tightly. His skeletal frame could withstand only the grip of Shion, but the other two women were far too strong to hold him like this.

Momonga tensed up at feeling his bones straining under their unreasonable strength.

"You.. are... crushing… me…" Momonga gasped.

"What do you expect, buddy? You were out for three days." Pero said.

"Don't you dare to scare us like that again!" Buku chipped in with a voice so low she sounded like she was growling.

"I just needed rest after working on skills, that's all." He tried to reason.

"Bullshit!" Buku shot him down. "Whatever you did you clearly went too far!"

"Sorry." He sheepishly replied. "I will make sure to be more careful with my energy reserves."

"Please don't scare us like that, Lord Momonga." Albedo said with her voice breaking. She looked up, her eyes filled with tears.

"Do not worry, I will be more careful." He replied, trying to peel the three women off himself with no success.

"Ladies, let's give Momonga some space to fully wake up. I'm sure he will make it up to you all for scaring everyone like that." Pero came to his friend's rescue.

Reluctantly, the trio let go of him and left his quarters with the rest of the guardians.

"So, what really happened?" Buku asked once the guardians were out of the room.

"I just overworked myself, that's all."

"Just overworked yourself?" Buku raised her eyebrow. "How about you stop bullshiting us!"

"It's true. I spent most of my energy on remaking skills I was giving to you all and then fell asleep in exhaustion." Momonga said.

"That's it?" Buku was not convinced.

"Buddy, you know her, just spill the beans."

Momonga let out a long sigh. "I had a weird dream. I think some of those whose names I cut out from the skills were not happy they could not get their clutches on you and the floor guardians."

"Sounds serious. How can we help?" Buku asked.

"I don't think you can help or that we are in danger, for now. They told me I arrived in their place of dwelling by accident and that I am not ready to be there."

"Sounds like you went to some sort of afterlife." Pero casually remarked.

Buku, meanwhile, got in Momonga's face with a snarl. "If you manage to kill yourself with your careless stupidity, I will find a way to resurrect you and then kill you myself the second time." She then inched her face even closer to his and added. "And you better make up for this to the girls. You got that?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Momonga squeaked in response.

"Good. I don't want to have this conversation a second time." Buku said and walked out of his quarters.

"What can I say except, 'Welcome to my world.'" Pero remarked and left as well.

Momonga just sat down and let out another long sigh. 'They all were so concerned about me. I better not repeat anything like this.'

Proofreading by Sad_Smiles, I AM THE STRING CUTTER, Abbysalidiot, RottenPizza, and alassandro.

AN: Thank you for reading the story, and if you have caught up to the latest chapter, you can check out my other work or join my discord server (Link is in my profile) where additional chapters are available.