God of Darkness & Kravel kept staring at Elric as if they were looking at a madman.
They were out of wits on why would Elric choose these Divine Abilities which were most complicated, very time-consuming to develop & very difficult to gain mastery over. There was a reason why these Divine Abilities were untouched & not even considered by all the previous 8 Chosen Heroes who came before Elric. But not only did he want to choose these oddities, he also wanted all 3 of them. Which was against the rules set by the Gods.
"What's there to be surprised about? I have my reasons to choose these 3. You chose me out of those millions of souls because you needed someone different to complete the mission, right? Well, these 3 are the ones I want. There aren't going to be alternatives & I won't change my mind." Elric said with a firm & resolved tone.
"Mortal, why must you choose these 3 abilities out of them all? There are many Divine Abilities that can make you very strong in a short amount of time. Not only will they save you a lot of time, they'll also help you create an influence in our world to the point where no Empire or Church will dare to declare an open war with you when you reveal your identity to the world. So why must you waste this chance on the most ignored Divine Abilities in the past 3 thousand years?" Kravel decided to ask out of his utmost curiosity towards Elric's decision.
"As I said before, if it was anyone else who came before me, they'd definitely choose the other Divine abilities. But I'm not them & my circumstances are different from them. Because none of them were going to hunted down by the entire world. Unlike them, I can't walk around people openly & declare that I'm the chosen Hero of God of Darkness. There's no one coming to my aid and no one is going to provide for me or look after me. Unlike the other abilities, these 3 can help me hide, survive & become stronger behind the shadows and no one will notice or try to uncover my identity." Elric explained.
His reasoning was right as none of his predecessors were in the same situation as him. And this made him consider his options based on practicality than just becoming stronger in a short time.
"Besides, you still don't know the potential of these 3 Divine Abilities at all. Let me put it in simple words. Though they're all complicated & hard to complete mastery over, the number of outcomes I can achieve are simply unimaginable. Not only they can help me get stronger bit by bit without raising the suspicion of the others, but they will also ensure my survival to the most degree. Something I need the most after I enter your world. Trust me, I know what I'm doing." Elric replied, refusing to go into too many details. Only he knew exactly what potential did these 3 Divine Abilities had.
Ability Absorption was one of the most Meta abilities he had seen in hundreds of Novels, Mangas & Animes. Of course, who didn't know about a 35 year old guy getting reincarnated as a Slime in another world with a similar ability just like Ability Absorption which helped him get stronger by devouring his enemies & monsters and reach to a level where even the Strongest beings in that new world had to acknowledge him & even slightly be wary of him. Of course, he was thinking about Rimuru Tempest from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
So when he saw Ability Absorption, the first thing Elric thought was how lucky he was and he had already hit the Jackpot. But to put an icing on the cake, he saw the 2nd Divine Ability, Dimensional Law.
Any Anime fan who watched Naruto & had enough information about it knew of one guy who put the entire world at a war just by himself. And he possessed the same ability similar to Dimensional Law which would allow him to have one part of his body exist in a separate Dimension so when his enemies attacked him, he'd simply face them head-on and take hits even straight at his heart just to have enemy's weapon pass right through him while he used that opportunity to kill his enemies by catching them off guard. Elric thought of none other than Obito Uchiha from Naruto Shippuden.
But the awesomeness of Dimensional Law didn't end here. This Divine Ability allowed him to open a crack in the void and hide in it for the time being. And with time as his mastery progressed, he could also travel inside the Void and exit out of it somewhere else.
So in simple words, there was no actual place that could completely trap him or a place he couldn't enter with this Divine Ability. For example, he could get out of prison whenever he wanted or get inside a highly protected Castle to kill someone and no one will ever find him.
Obviously, Elric won't be able to achieve such results with his non-existent mastery over Space & Time Law, but with time he could envision himself achieve that feat as well.
And to fill your stomach with delicious food, there was the 3rd Divine Ability, Synthesis.
Since Elric wasn't going to have an OP System like many Protagonists who get reincarnated in another world which would guide them, help them become stronger and give them Rewards like Epic Swords or Equipment, create stuff out of nowhere and things that shouldn't belong in that world based on its setting such as Culture, Technology & Scientific advancement, he needed a way to ensure his safety and find a reliable way that won't just help him become stronger but rather way too OP.
And Synthesis was just offering him that. By using Ability Absorption, he could gain both physical abilities and magical skills of his targets. But that's all there ever will be. He will naturally have to look for way too stronger enemies to learn badass abilities & skills. And they will vary from each other as well. But with Synthesis Divine Ability, not only could he merge the abilities he already learned, but he could also use it to merge different beings.
For example, he could simply kill a monster, gain their abilities and then later use that monster to merge with another monster to create his own version. Which will not be any weaker than the Former, rather even more powerful. And Elric felt that these creations of his would naturally be loyal to him. Otherwise, Synthesis would not be called a Divine Ability if his own creations tried to kill him instead.
With this ability, not only he could create a small army of monsters or people for him, he could also create new beings which he may need to do a specific task or job which required them to have a specific type of skills and physical advantage.
In the future, he could just create an OP army of his creations with time which could become comparable to the army of shadow soldiers of a certain Korean Hunter.
All Elric needed was just time to get stronger and experiment with these Abilities. He naturally believed that this wasn't the only use of these 3 Divine Abilities. This was more likely just the Cover of the book. And there would be far many more applications and different uses that remain to be explored. Compared to the other Divine Abilities, These were not as easy or convenient as other Divine Abilities but the potential was simply unimaginable. And if he were to fight someone like Demon God on even terms, he needed not only just one form of power but everything he could find and make use of in the world of Vantrea.
If he wanted to stay alive at the end of the fight that is. Because all the predecessor Chosen Heroes of the 12 Gods had already made it obvious that they all failed to kill him no matter how strong they had become. Elric didn't believe that all of them were stupid and ran into a fight to the death with the Demon God without preparing beforehand about every single aspect of the battle & how they were going to emerge victorious.
At this time, G.O.D. finally decided to speak up.
"Even if I were to comply with your decision, I still need to remind you that you can only choose 2 Divine Abilities. Not more than that."
To his reply, Elric gave him an expression of pity instead.
"Are you stupid ?"
G.O.D. was startled and then the next second, he was enraged.
"What did you just say? Do you think I won't torture you for the end of time just because I have no choice but to choose you as my Chosen Hero?" G.O.D. spoke angrily.
To his spine-chilling voice, Elric replied. "Think about it. You said that this is probably going to be the last chance the Gods have to kill the Demon God before he becomes a full-fledged God like you. So do you really believe that the other Gods are going to keep their word and give only 2 divine abilities to their heroes? For all I know, they'd be giving them at least 4 to 5 divine abilities just to increase their winning chances. After all, whichever God's hero kills the Demon God, He/She would become the entire world's saviour. And that would bring fame to that God's name. Fame big enough to have many living beings in the world to start worshipping that God. So obviously they won't be holding back. Don't tell me you Gods are bound to keep your word for a verbal pact? Haha"
Elric explained his reasons for calling G.O.D. stupid. And even the God of Darkness was left speechless suddenly realized that Elric was right. Given the fact that this was their last chance, no one was going to hold back no matter how much they wanted to honor their pact. And like Elric said, the winner would be literally worshipped by the entire world and the God who brought them would become the entire world's most famous & worshipped God. Even for someone like God of Darkness who was hated and now forgotten by the entire world, this could bring back his former glory overnight.
He too was tired & irritated by the constant mockery and banters of the other Gods because of the actions of his previous Chosen Hero. He could not kill them just as they could not kill him. So he wanted to say "Suck it!" to them as well. This was also a great opportunity for having one up on all the other Gods. But he wasn't a fool. He looked at Elric and said, "3 should be the maximum amount of Divine Abilities you should choose. Because these abilities will be embedded into your soul and need a fraction of your Soul Essence to keep functioning. With time, your soul will get stronger in our world. But so will the consumption of Soul Essence. Any more than 3 Divine abilities and it'll adversely affect your soul & your future strength. Since the other Gods aren't any knowledgeable about Death & Souls like me, I'm sure those idiots will give 4 to 5 Divine abilities to their Heroes." G.O.D. replied as a grin appeared on his face because of the fact that other Gods were going to suffer a huge misfortune. He liked the idea of it.
"Fine. I agree with you. You can have all 3 of these." G.O.D. said and the 3 house-size monoliths exploded into millions of pieces and 3 Orbs of pure energy came out of them. All 3 of these orbs quickly came in contact with Elric's soul form and started merging with him. In just a minute, they completely merged with his soul form and no traces of them were left. They all had completely unified with Elric.
"Now, it is time for us to prepare your body. And then you can enter Vantrea." G.O.D. said with a little bit of excitement. But just when he was about to speak again, Elric spoke again.
"Wait!" Elric looked towards Kravel this time and asked.
"Aren't you going give me something as well ?" Elric asked.
"What?! Why would I give you something, mortal? Hasn't my Liege already given you 3 Divine abilities ?" Kravel asked in a puzzled tone.
"That's not enough. Given the dire situation we're in. It'll hardly help me out. Or is it that you don't want to help me? Don't tell me all your grand display of loyalty & respect is just for the show. And you don't want to help in your 'Liege' getting back to his glory days ?" Elric asked in a provocative tone. He questioned Kravel's loyalty with the purpose of riling him up.
"What did you say, mortal?!" Kravel was angered to his core. Even red fumes were coming out of his glowing red eyes from inside of his helmet.
"I'm just saying. If it was anyone else in your position. They would've offered to provide extra help for their Master without a question. I'm just surprised that you didn't." Elric said as a look of disappointment appeared in his eyes. He shook his head.
"You dare?! I'll show you my loyalty towards my Liege. Don't look down on me, mortal!" Kravel said as he regained his composure. And in the next second, 6 different ancient symbols of different sizes & colors appeared in front of Kravel and started moving towards Elric who was in his soul form. Quickly all these ancient symbols started entering inside him and one by one, they appeared around different parts of his soul form. As if they were some ancient runes engraved on his body.
The next second, Elric's mind received the information about what exactly were these ancient symbols and what did he actually receive.
[Holy Fuck!] Elric said to himself. He looked at Kravel with the utmost respect for the first time. Because of the information he received also informed him about who Kravel was.
Elric only knew that Kravel was a Demigod, but nothing more than that. But after he received the information in his head, he finally found out the true title of Kravel. Elric now finally understood that the being wasn't just some lackey of God of Darkness. But a being who would be respected and feared from no matter where he went.
The ancient symbols were actually blessings that were bestowed upon Elric. And through their description, he saw the name..
KRAVEL : THE WAR DEITY
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Author's Note : I know that few chapters have been stretched far longer than needed but this is the only chance I'll get to set a proper background for everyone & the 'Why' so that Readers can understand why would any character act & behave the way they're going to, such as our Protagonist for example. A lot of details & references were shared on the Divine abilities because I wanted the readers to get a hint at what they should expect or what's to come on the menu. But no worries, from the next chapter, there won't be any outstretched talks or reasoning explained for the plots.
P. S. Donate a Badge to this poor Author if you liked the story so far. *stares with sparkling puppy eyes*