Chapter 177 - Ocean Above Our Heads

Two days passed with Alice and Zeel recovering from their respective injuries. They both went beyond what their restrictions allowed them.

Alice forcefully judged someone as guilty even against her own standards, while Zeel acted as the executioner.

Compared to Alice, Zeel's punishment was much more severe, even his body would constantly shift between divine and mortal.

His divinities eventually stabilize, but now they all knew the consequence of performing acts unbefitting of a god. It was a reversion back to a mortal, and inability to evolve any more.

Zeel could also feel his nanites calculations slow down by as much as 5%.

This hurt Zeel more than anything could physically. His calculation speeds were what saved his life even before he became a god.

Elizabeth was most concerned since Sean had tried to kill them out of anger for sacrificing his beloved grandfather.

This was not what concerned her though, it was that she was quickly becoming irritated with Sean's constant sly remarks.

She would have killed the boy already had she not been worried that doing so would affect Zeel and Alice negatively.

Zeel was currently in a vulnerable condition with Alice just sleeping slightly due to exhaustion.

Elizabeth was frustrated at having to store the dead body of Alexander in her storage dimension. She could not allow the sacrifice to be made until Alice and Zeel had woken up.

Thankfully, she didn't have to wait long since Alice woke just a couple of minutes later.

Zeel stirred awake the following day, lamenting the fact that his body felt a couple of tons heavier.

"I've always read cultivation novels that talk about 'Going against the heavens'," Zeel said after waking up, then continued "I don't wanna fuck with the heavens anymore, I am not sure how those guys do it. Heaven hurts…. a lot,"

This joke elicited giggles from everyone there except Hank and Sean, who were both still a bit angry at the untimely murder of Alexander.

Sean took the blow much harder than Hank who was experienced with death.

Sensing their emotional state, Zeel decided to be as truthfully blunt as possible "The Runes required a human sacrifice to open, so I thought of killing the fat one first,"

This statement caused Gabato and Kailani to flinch, but Zeel did not pay it any mind as he continued "But it required cursed blood. The Mysterious Island you and your grandfather so desperately searched for brought you here to be sacrificial lambs. I simply made you fulfill your original purpose,"

Sean grimaced and snarled at Zeel "And what would you know? You killed him without blinking an eye!"

Zeel's own face grimaced briefly, he hated the feeling of wanting to kill someone so bad but not being able to due to Alice being around.

Zeel knew never to leave an enemy alive, and usually, he wouldn't spare even a child since that exact child could grow to be his doom.

He knew that he needed to get rid of Sean, but he also knew that he would not be able to do it for a long time.

'I hope I can kill him sometime later on,' Zeel thought to himself in frustration.

Of course, these thoughts were hidden from both Alice and Elizabeth, Zeel wouldn't be the holder of the master-nanites if he was unable to filter what the girls had access to at any given time.

Seeing that Zeel was stuck in his thoughts, Alice replied in his stead "It was either you or your grandfather. Be glad that he made the sacrifice so that you could live a little longer,"

Alice snorted and walked towards the Runes of the ruins.

Zeel and Elizabeth soon followed which urged the others to follow along as well, though halfway to the destination, Hank began looking at the moist soil for extended periods of time.

Looking at the Runes, Zeel nodded towards Elizabeth who quickly took the time-frozen corpse of Alexander from her storage dimension.

Even if time moved exponentially slower in her storage dimension, she didn't exactly admire the feeling of a corpse being in the same place as her clothing and other necessities.

Blood started to drip onto the Runes from Alexander's body, it didn't take long for the ruins to shake a bit before the Runes flickered with bright lights. The entire circular platform sunk into the ground.

The ruins shifted over and over again until a huge area opened up a couple of meters from everyone's feet.

Inside the newly opened area, everyone could see crystal clear water that pulsed constantly as if it was alive, stairs that led down to an altar below the water.

On the alter was a pedestal housing a blue jewel, unlike anything even Zeel had ever witnessed before.

"Beautiful,"

"Amazing,"

Murmurs could be heard from everyone as they fell into a sort of trance gazing intently at the blue jewel that seemed to house the entirety of blue oceans within – only with few blinking star-like lights every now and again.

Zeel snapped his finger with a little electricity, this created a sound loud enough to snap everyone out of whatever trance they had entered previously.

He then walked towards Alice and Elizabeth, giving them both a peck on the lips before turning and telling everyone "Beautiful things in life are the most dangerous, the more beautiful it is – the more poisonous it can become,"

Elizabeth smirked at the comment "Then am I the most poisonous person here darling?"

Alice snorted since Elizabeth had the tendency to unconsciously use her country talk and accent, whenever she wanted to act more appealing to Zeel – ironically she didn't like the cowgirl position as much as her accent would make you believe she did.

Zeel examined the jewel with the aid of a few floating silver-balls but found nothing out of place – even so, it was best to be extra cautious.

Sadly, Elizabeth was not one to just sit back when a divine spark was already in front of her, she manipulated the water a bit with her power.

"I can't use my energy freely on this island, I can manipulate this water with my elemental ability with ease – this means that this area has no energy signature whatever," Elizabeth said looking at Zeel and Alice for approval. She was a bit impatient to get a divinity of her own.

Zeel felt as if they were missing a very important piece of information "Wouldn't that be too easy? Claiming a divine spark without any last-minute trap?"

Alice laughed "I think you watched too many movies in the previous Universe or something,"

Elizabeth shrugged "Yeah this is not a movie, and we can just run if anything bad happens. At the very least we know that nothing bad will happen until we take the divine spark,"

Zeel did not have the opportunity to answer, Elizabeth had already jumped headfirst into the crystal clear water, though the water seemed to avoid her like the plague – no doubt she was using her water element to be extra cautious.

Zeel sighed internally – yes the divine spark was right there but why didn't it feel right? Something about the divine spark rubbed him the wrong way.

"What's on your mind," Alice asked running her finger through Zeel's hair, this action caused him to slightly tilt his head upwards, looking at the blue sky.

Noticing that Zeel was staring blankly at the sky, Alice was about to leave him to his wondering but he suddenly disappeared in a flash of transparent lightning.

Elizabeth's hand was inches away from claiming the divine spark when Zeel's own hand grabbed hers, the lightning from his body briefly burnt her skin but she had become used to the sensation since it often occurred during their late-night love makings.

"Reason?" Elizabeth asked a bit frustrated, she couldn't glean anything from his memories because Zeel himself had not made up his mind as yet.

Zeel shook his head as the water avoided both himself and Elizabeth as they made their way back to Alice and company.

"Explanation?" Alice asked looking at the sky a bit weirdly, while she didn't know exactly what happened, she could tell that the inspiration came from looking at the skies.

Zeel looked up "We're in a failing sub-dimension so it should be closer to the outside world than we think, but the moment we came in here we have been seeing a different sky…. Why?"

Elizabeth shrugged "Isn't it right to assume that a different dimension means a different environment entirely?"

Alice nodded but refused Elizabeth's statement "That only applies to independent dimensions, this is a sub-dimension so the sky should be the same. If not it would only appear diffracted by an index,"

Zeel nodded "In the night we can see the constellation of Poseidon's trident, and looking at the blue jewel of divine spark I could see it matches the color of the skies,"

Elizabeth's eyes widened at the implication of his words "You're saying that –"

Zeel pointed towards the blue skies and said "That up there is your divine spark,"

Alice looked at Elizabeth "It is quite literally the size of an ocean, and you have to absorb it,"

Everyone's jaws opened wide at the mere impossibility of the task given to Elizabeth, but all she did was murmur a quiet statement that everyone still managed to hear "I took you inside me, so at this point, I think I can take it,"

Alice was the first to laugh, leave it to Elizabeth to make you laugh even when things look dire.