Eva was greatly impressed by the Divine Symbol. It was the perfect tool for her and her specific bloodline/abilities in this scenario. It would allow her to channel and abuse some special privileges of her bloodline that she knew of, but had been unable to muster as either a skill or technique.
Eva took it out from her inventory and checked it out. It looked like a small white talisman that glowed with a strange glyph calligraphed in black. Eva's eyes narrowed, as she was reminded that some members of her Amaterasu Lineage, specifically those of the Goddess of Light Inheritance, fought using talismans like this.
The country called them 'Onmyouji' locally and the general people liked them, but internally the Amaterasu Lineage regarded them as the weakest members of that inheritance. They were the ones unable to manifest much Light Energy or exorcism abilities on their own, so they had no choice but to use external materials to assist themselves.
Eva flicked the talisman and activated it immediately. It lit up and began burning, destroying the paper until only a glyph was left floating in the air as it shone with a gold light.
After seemingly charging up, it rushed into Eva's body through her chest, and she idly watched the proceedings as they happened. Eva then slightly grimaced as she felt her blood boil like someone had poured lava in her veins.
She soon relaxed after the boiling subsided in about a minute, but she noticed that the glyph was nowhere to be found in her body. Its energy was gone, probably subsumed by her bloodline, though had Eva expected a lot more from it given the way the system had described it.
Suddenly she felt like her back getting a bit itchy. As she reached out to scratch it, she felt something obstructing her fingers. Frowning, she cast out her Void of Perfection to see what was on her back, which left her speechless.
Behind her was a circular halo of light that had a single black stripe running through it. It spiked out in three points, with strange magatama symbols lying within.
It looked similar to the divine halo she manifested whenever she entered her Goddess Form, but also not. The two had the same aura, only that the one brought out by this item looked sleeker and more refined than what Amaterasu naturally manifested.
Eva touched it and tried to retract it, but failed to do so. She smiled bitterly when she realized that this would make stealth practically impossible for the foreseeable future, as she would always have her big glowing Divine Symbol hovering at her back.
Deciding to ignore it for now, Eva focused on its abilities in detail.
The first passive didn't directly increase or decrease her damage. It simply changed the status of it, and its versatility. Divine Damage didn't mean much if the attack itself was weak, but it meant that there was no entity below Origin Rank that could negate Eva's damage.
Her skill and techniques would not be able to damage true Gods, although probably not Semi-Origin Gods, as long as they went through the Divine Symbol. Still, this didn't mean that her attacks could penetrate all types defenses, as normal modifiers would still be applied.
It only meant that she could overcome passive skills like Warm Spring's Damage Immunity or even her own Void Blessing passive that either resisted or negated damage below Divine Rank.
This was an important ability, because certain World Bosses had such immunities as their passives. To deal with them, a large numbers of players were forced to deal enough damage to pass a certain threshold to make those World Bosses enter a stun phase allowing the players to bombard them before they entered their next combat phases.
The second passive though, was what Eva could only describe as a godsend. The ability to gain a Pseudo-Divine Source Origin was unparalleled, making her no different from a mini-Titled God of sorts.
Well, that was just her guess. Eva tried to manifest some Divine Energy, even an iota, but discovered that nothing at all came out. She frowned deeply as she tried to galvanize her Source Origin, but still nothing Divine got manifested.
However, the more she tried, and the more she inspected this new Source Origin, the more Eva understood how it worked and why she was unable to achieve it in the first place. The answer was simply because she could only store and not produce!
In other words, she could receive Divine Energy from external sources like Divine Crystals or from the hands of True Gods and store it within herself, using it at will.
However, she could not absorb ambient Worldly Energy and convert it upwards or absorb what minuscule amounts of Divine Energy might be the atmosphere to produce her own. As such, she was extremely limited in this regard.
Eva sighed. How could the AI allow her to have unbridled access to pure divine Energy at a mere Rank 2? It certainly wasn't sick in the head to sabotage itself so badly, so she should have known better.
Even the active skill was limited in such a manner. It allowed Eva to climb up the Ranks and obtain a Divine Rank, but not a Divine Source Origin. It meant that Eva's damage and defense would greatly increase beyond mortal comprehension, but nothing new would manifest.
Without Divine Energy, she could not use world-ending skills or fuel her abilities to shatter contents and whatnot. Not to mention the duration was even shorter than any of her True Forms that while below Divine Rank, could still technically manifest greater power.
Eva sighed and let the matter go. She gathered her rewards and spoke to the core members through the Raid Party Chat.
"Clean up and leave the area. Head to the Rank 7 Guild Hall and wait for me there. -Eva"
After informing them of their next directive, Eva called out Luxia and mounted the Light Phoenix. With a screech, Luxia bolted through the atmosphere at unmatched speed, only leaving a streak of light in her wake.
While Luxia moved through the atmosphere at light speed, Eva entered the mansion's super mini small world. She had dealt with the lesser issues of importance and now had to deal with the most important one.
Eva walked through the hallways of the relatively small mansion and was greeted by the maids within. She reached the master bedroom and saw Zaine, Hikari, and Roma seated around a small coffee table sitting there in silence.
Rila, Loki, and Rosella were not with the three, which was an obvious sign that thee of them were not feeling very well. Usually picking up their children would have been the first things the mothers would do, but right now they appeared to be managed by the Grandmaster Rank Nannies Eva had painstakingly hired with her looted money from the Merchant's Guild.
Upon her entry, the three ladies gazed at Eva with a mixture of different emotions showing upon their faces. Hikari wore sadness, Zaine had a bitter smile and Roma grimaced slightly.
Eva sighed and sat down next them. The room was enveloped in a strange bout of silence for a while until Zaine spoke first.
"You know… sometimes I wish I was an idiot. That way I wouldn't be able to piece together things or come to sound conclusions given logical facts and occurrences."
"When I saw you re-appear, I immediately understood everything. The what, why, and how. You quickly brought us here for reasons I understand even further..."
Zaine's bitter smile deepened. "Yet… I still feel… I don't even know how to put it into words."
Roma picked up. "It feels like, emotionally, we have been hit with a life drain ability, then had that hammer user among the members of Umbra flatten us."
Zaine nodded with a light smile of amus.e.m.e.nt. "Yes, something like that."
Hikari raised her head and looked at the three with confusion. "I-I still don't entirely understand what happened…"
Zaine opened her mouth to explain, but Eva signaled to the succubus that she would take over.
"I was able to use my budding Telepathy and Menticide to extract the reasons behind the existence of the Dark Knight and his actions."
Upon mention of the Dark Knight, the three ladies flinched like they had been whipped. Eva didn't blame them, for it was his true identity that really f.u.c.k.i.e.d them up beyond compare, and was why Eva needed to give them closure.
"He, as you may have noticed, resembles Draco's true self perfectly. This is because he is likely a clone of Draco created through a bizarre sequence of events that I don't truly understand yet."
"Initially, he wanted to challenge Draco and see who was stronger, but Draco easily defeated him back then. Later, after Draco unlocked his bloodline shackles, there must have been a rebound or reflection on his clone, the Dark Knight, forcing him to manifest similar abilities, though not as pleasantly."
"The pain drove him mad and he became the Metal Dragon. As I recall, only Roma had been there to face him with us at the time, as Zaine's loyalty was still in question and Hikari had not yet been discovered by us."
At this, Zaine rubbed her face with embarrassment while Hikari coughed lightly. Only Roma smiled slightly, though she dared not show it overtly, otherwise her sister-wives might beat her to a pulp for her arrogance.
"After being defeated by Draco in the end, he manifested once more to hunt him down. However, we did not hear from him at all in a long time. The reason for that was because he had been training himself to become stronger so he could stand a chance to beat Draco."
"Unfortunately, he was hit with a rebound yet again. This was when he climbed up the Ranks and hit Rank 2 on his own. For some reason, he unlocked some of Draco's true memories from the alternate timeline which we returned from."
Eva's eyes narrowed. "What is interesting here is that he only regained memories of Draco during the first year of our misunderstanding, when our conflict began. The Dark Knight himself had suspected a third party might be manipulating him using that memory, but he had been unable to really free himself."
"I personally agree with his assumption. There was indeed a formless hand guiding all his thoughts and actions but I did not manage to see what it was. Whatever the case, it led him the Dark Knight to taking action, which had increased the difficulty of the event we partook in, so that his agent could get a chance to ambush me."
"After all, he carried the hatred of Draco during that year, so that was understandable. The problem though, was that he was able to hide from my senses by using the same means I employed to infiltrate the Merchant's Guild. It's a double-edged sword that is useful if it's on your side, horrifying if used against us."
"As you know, it was Aaron (Essence Stalker) who was able to detect him in the end through the undulations of space. Not only that, but the Dark Knight was blessed had been blessed by my self-appointed mortal enemy, Sunna the Retarded Sun Goddess."
"As such, the stakes were against me, and in the end, I was struck successfully by my enemy. This you all witnessed firsthand."
The trio perked up here, for it seemed Eva was about to explain how the heck she actually survived that and managed to come back unscathed.
Eva paused here and hardened her expression. This made the three ladies suck in a breath as they knew that Eva was going to reveal something extremely mind-boggling to them at this moment, something they never could have imagined…
"At the moment he burned my body with all of his amassed Destruction Energy, I received a summons from Draco which could not be ignored, so while it seemed like I might have been destroyed by that, the truth was that I returned to the Realm of the Gods."
Even though Eva said this in all seriousness, the atmosphere in the room fell after she was done. The three ladies opposite her were staring at Eva with incomprehension, shock, and disbelief.
They couldn't believe what she had just told them. It was incomprehensible really. They could accept grudgingly that the Dark Knight reassembled their beloved so greatly due to some cosmic fluke or plan against Eva.
But for Eva to have appeared 'dead' to them because she coincidentally was summoned by Draco… what?? First of all, to be summoned out by Draco… what did that mean?
And most importantly…
"You mean to say… we grieved and cried over your destruction… almost losing our minds with sorrow and hate… while you were out on a booty call?!" Zaine shouted out what was on all their minds with disbelief.
