NOVPUBHis words got caught in his throat, his heart pounding moments away from exploding. His whole body broke into sweat as his mind struggled to comprehend the information he had just received.
The system was one of the world's mysteries, all that was known about it was that it was connected to the gods somehow and that the stronger one became the more the system would speak to them directly.
At the beginning he found it hard to believe, he had a dragon in his possession after all and yet the system mostly stayed quiet, not informing him about anything nor did it want anything from him.
He figured that it was never meant to be used by mortals but was put in place for some unknown reason by the gods.
Yet there was something in his mind, very deep in his subconscious that gnawed at him. What if he was mistaken? What if as long as you become strong the more and more you will hear the system?
That would mean he was simply too weak up until now. It was a ridiculous thought—he had a dragon under his command! How could he be weak?!
His fingers trembled as he recalled what the elf had told him when the two met. She had told him that he was weak.
So the reason as to why the system didn't interact much with him wasn't because it wasn't meant to but because he really was that weak.
It was possible that his beasts didn't count when it came to estimating how powerful an individual was—they must prove that they are strong enough on their own.
This was something that he hadn't been able to do… up until now.
A mission.
Not even in his wildest dreams he would have thought that the system could give him a mission, and it wasn't a simple one at that—no! It was Divine! Did that mean it was assigned by a god?
He didn't know. There was no way to know.
But one thing was certain—he had been tasked with attaining Godhood, according to the system.
He needed 7 Fragments in total. He already had one, confirming that what Sira had told him was the truth and that meant he had to collect six more.
There was no way to be certain, but the only way he imagined that he could gather said Fragments was to kill people that already had one.
As for what Divine essence attunement meant, he couldn't say for certain, all he knew was that he needed four in total and he already had two.
Had he been born with them? No, that wasn't possible—his parents weren't some kind of ancient gods in disguise, that was for sure.
That meant he must have achieved these things during his life. But when and how?
There was no way to know for certain.
Shaking his head he parted his lips, his voice trembling in excitement,
"Luna, did you hear that?"
There was a moment of silence until she parted her lips.
"Yes," she replied plainly. There was no emotion in her voice—she wasn't as excited as Zaroth was.
There was a possibility that this was the case as she was fundamentally a beast and they didn't care for things like that… or that if the theory that the system was connected with the gods was true, it would mean he had directly gotten a mission from them.
And that wasn't a pleasant thing as they had the goal to ultimately kill the gods.
"I suggest you don't trust it completely," she advised, embracing him tighter for a moment,
"The gods are beings that will not hesitate to lie or cheat if they are going to benefit from it."
Zaroth had to agree there was some merit to his dragon's words.
However, there was an inching suspicion that wasn't planned by them,
The system displayed plenty of errors one after another and finally it stated that it had been overwritten.
So it was possible this wasn't the act of the gods? Maybe it was something else? An ancient evil—something that could oppose even them, or something beyond his comprehension.
There were a lot of questions on his mind, but like always, once the system announced what it wanted to, it departed.
With a sigh Zaroth slowly stood up, his heart still racing from the excitement of the mission.
His eyes scanned the surroundings briefly, in fifty meters radius from him there was no flame in sight. The new skill had done its job.
A satisfied smile appeared on his face as his feet began to move, the city was still burning and he had to extinguish as many flames as possible. That not only because this would help the slaves—his new subjects—later on but he was also going to practice using Fire Control.
*****
A few hours passed relatively fast.
Zaroth would move to a place that was being burned by flames and use his new skill to extinguish them. While Luna was always by his side redirecting him on what he was doing right and wrong.
By the end he had successfully managed to disperse about a quarter of the city's flames on his own.
Though his mana core was drained as a result.
"Good work," Luna praised with a smile as she patted him on the head.
Zaroth found the gesture quite comfortable so he didn't complain.
The teams that he had made earlier had gotten rid of the flames.
This meant that phase one of transforming the city was over! 𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑝𝘶𝘣.𝑐𝘰𝘮
"You look… different." Eldros blurted out when he saw Zaroth approach him.
He in turn raised an eyebrow, forgetting that it was invisible since he wore the demonic mask. "I am?"
Eldros nodded silently, "Yes, it's kind of hard to explain but you feel… stronger in a way."
Realizing that he was most likely talking about Zaroth's new skill, he didn't pry further.
"Hey, just a question but do you happen to know what a Fragment is?" Zaroth asked since the only person that seemed to know about it was Sira, the elf he had met earlier.
"No, never heard of it." Eldros shook his head.
"What about Divine essence attunement?" Considering that Eldros had come from the Purifiers, there was a chance he knew what it meant.
But he simply shook his head again, it was the first time he had heard of such a thing.
"Well, no matter." Zaroth sighed as he gazed at the slaves that were watching him and Eldros with curiosity in their eyes.
Now that the fires were gone, there was no longer smoke in the air, meaning Zaroth was able to see just how many slaves there were in the city.
The sight was shocking—their number was so grand he couldn't count them all. But if he had to guess, there were 5,000 at least!
'And to think that all of them will listen to me…' a smile crept upon his face.
Just the thought of what he'd be able to do once these people were armed and trained to fight thrilled him beyond belief! He would have a personal army—a dream come true!
Now it was time to initiate phase two of transforming the city!
