Chapter 68: 68
I open up with a massive torrent of flames, not from Infront of me but from above him. the flames come out like a Covenant glassing and he can only brace himself and hold his shield above him. without even needing to let anyone else know they all take action, Delia shoots a barrage of pressurized water bullets over his struggling legs. Isabella lets out her full power into her crack trait and it manages to cause fractures along Broc's arms like they're made of glass.
"AHHHHH!" he tries to walk to get out from the beam of fire I am raining down on him, his legs are shaking and almost buckle from the constant barrage of attacks at the back of his knees. a small tendril of darkness wraps around each leg keeping him in place. "You COWARDS! fight me fairly!" he curses us as one of his arms shatters into pieces and he has to brace the shield with his cheek.
If this wasn't an artifact it would likely be glowing with heat but it is insulating enough to not have melted his face, though with it only being half the shield it seems to not stop all the heat as he screams in pain.
I notice he is already starting to flag and on the verge of collapse from the four-way attacks. I look toward Izzy and she notices and I give a quick nod, she summons two daggers that glow with an eerie green light. I cut off the flames and Izzy already appeared on his backside slicing the back of both of his legs, with a chop his arm holding the shield also falls to the ground with an echo on the hard stone.
"Here, Delia combine them if you can." I yoink the shield and pass it over to Delia as I absorbed the arm into the system to be broken down.
"O-Oh ok." she doesn't take her eyes off Broc as he tries to crawl with his chin, Izzy stomps a high heel into his spine. The two shields glow lightly as the runes on them both swim across onto each other, when they mix they pull the metal together. the glowing dims out as the newly fixed shield rebinds to Delia.
"Honestly this was pretty anticlimactic, I expected more than him just walking into an ambush." Isabella glares down as she works her heel into his back. Broc is bleeding from his mouth as he tries to keep quiet by biting his lips.
"Well you two sort out all your grievances since you are the two he wronged, I am going to go ahead and send Guradam off." neither responds as I throw a shoulder over the dark smog body and pull him to the side. "let's give them their space, I am going to send you to town Yankou, we have a mine operating there for a rare material but there is something interesting there. there is an ancient battlefield with an untold amount of body's buried and a perfect place to begin a huge undead army, I will also drop off scores of dead in the future there for your use. you can begin all those plans and experiment with your own designs there. if you have any questions about demonic energy contact me with this slip with a bit of demonic energy it will reach out to me." I hand him a slip as he is still clutching the book tight and with a quick nod from him I send him off to build me my first personal army, I have some people reincarnated for miscellaneous tasks but this will be a real force to reckon with.
If he can achieve even half of that book's ideas with demonic energy, he will reach ridiculous heights. I have faith in him from his original character he was a devout researcher when it came to necromancy.
I hear a thunk behind me as I turn to see Broc's body hit the ground, why they stood him up I have no idea but he seems to be dead now.
"All good now?" Isabella snorts and puts away her daggers.
"Yea, I still got more people on my list but the important ones are all gone other than his uncle." she got over the fact I reincarnated Sabrina since living as a slave might just be worse for the woman than death. she can't scheme or have ambition when she can't disobey anything I say, pretty sure she still wants her dead though.
"I don't know how to feel, I went for this artifact to have some freedom from him. I didn't expect him to show up and get killed like a dog being put down." Isabella looks over at me and I shrug, I told her to be ready in case he showed up so there is some deniability on my part if she ever accident slips up about that. not that she would but still I didn't say with one hundred percent certainty that he would show. "I don't even know what to do now."
"You still coming to see Athena?" she looks up and nods, he eyes slightly red as she holds back tears. "alright, let's head over there then. Do you want to swing by to learn how to teleport back on your own Isabella? I can send you back but it would be a good thing to go ahead and learn for yourself." she nods and I bring us all back to the dark moon after absorbing Broc's body and receiving a stone for Leviathans and a healthy amount of sin.
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"And that is that you figured it out just as fast as everyone else if not a bit faster." Izzy has already teleported us from the house in the dark moon to her house in the capital.
"Thanks, this is really helpful." she stops playing with the circle as she looks over at me and I tilt my head.
"What's up?" she shakes her head.
"I expected a lot more from you, as in I expected more work or requests at least. you already told me you wouldn't try to boss me around or anything but you have left me on my own here." she gestures out the window. "I still am running the secret intelligence unit and the finances for Obsidian and only looking for a chance to summon you into the vault with the artifact. other than you checking up on my well-being occasionally you haven't talked to me all that much. it's weird for me since you kind of made me dependent on you by becoming your devil or whatever." she squints at me as she looks at me weirdly.
"Well, other than the artifact and basic intelligence reports on useful info there isn't much to do at the moment, maybe meeting with the elder families to have them not assist Obsidian when the time comes. but that won't be effective till Shea has the artifact, and you have enough dirt to bury most of them anyway." she nods but still doesn't let up on her accusatory look. "what is it that seems to have occupied your thoughts? that I might be getting ready to drop you or something? I quite literally can't, the piece is bound to your soul and can't be reused and I don't get unlimited amounts of those so that's not very wise on my part." she shakes her head and looks down a bit before looking back up.
"Are you gay or something?" she leans on the back of a couch as she crosses her arms under her bust.
"Gay? I mean I don't have a problem with being gay but I am not gay myself. quite literally just was screwing Athena like yesterday." she hums as she pushes herself off the couch using her lower back, she approaches me, and looks into my eyes. her bright emerald eyes contradict her normal attitude, she licks her lightly purple lips wetting them with a glossy sheen.
"I see, maybe it's just I am not your taste?" I shake my head slowly.
"I don't see where this is coming from. I haven't made a move there for I am not interested?" she doesn't agree but also doesn't disagree. "I mean you made it pretty clear when you told me you lost those boots and got cursed that you had a strong distaste and distrust of men. I thought it would be best to take a slow approach with any relationship we had so you didn't grow an aversion to me, romantic or professional." she drops her arms and looks down when I bring back up the emotional wound.
"That makes sense I suppose, I am just used to most men and by most I mean all of them trying to talk or flirt with me. constant gifts and invites to special events or restaurants under the pretext of negotiations or deals, only for it to be a poor attempt at courting me. I had to make a few examples of those who waste my time, I just was curious about why you seemed to be keeping a distance. it didn't feel like a problem of being in the capital while you were in the dark moon since you can quite literally walk into my living room as easy as walking into the door next to you." she sighs as she walks back over to the couch and drops onto it, instead of just standing there I walk around to the one across from it and sit. "I don't know what I expected but I guess I was prepared to have to deal with you being a bit more hands-on."
"Is that how working for blood fall and Obsidian has been?" she turns her head to look across the table to look at me, she is laying on her back with a pillow propping up her head. she didn't even take her dirty shoes off before putting them on the couch.
"I guess so... I have always been going from one order to the next, I still am because of Obsidian and technically blood fall still hasn't caught onto me not working for them. but you don't ask anything of me so I just felt a bit... odd." I nod and lean back and look up at the big crystal chandelier.
"Alright, then whenever you are free you should head over to the dark moon and visit, I am sure we can get up to something. either it is hanging out or working with demonic energy, eventually, we are all going to be at the threshold to enter the big leagues at peak overlord like Catherine and we need to find out how we will make that work." she sits up with a hand on each side of her thighs pushing them together.
"That could work, wait Catherine?" I smile as I pull out the shadow cloak and drape it over my front like a bib.
"Observe." I activate it to warp myself beside her invisible and put my hand that was over the back of the couch around her shoulder. she snaps her head to the side wide-eyed, before she can stand up I pull her back down and send the cloak back.
"What the- wait is that the shadow cloak?" I nod and she goes wide-eyed, her jaw falling a bit so I close it and she smacks my hand away. "What happened?! how did you get an artifact from the empress of dark shadow?"
As she is asking twenty questions I pull out the mask and she stops seeing it, quickly her eyes widen as she realizes what it is. soon I will also have the Shield and then only the sword, boots, ring, and chest plate will be left.
"Hold on, before you tell me about the events that happened for you to acquire two artifacts, why didn't you tell me about the cloak? we could have just walked into the vault and taken the sword when the elders swap out guarding it." she deadpans and I feel a bit dumb for not thinking about that, well something to look forward to I guess.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Pretending_Author
Pretending_Author I am having to go a weird route with Isabella because Chen Rui broke into her heart by doing a bunch of things that are not possible for Nova. mainly because he already fixed most of her biggest problems and so I am having to have her respond differently to Nova than she did Chen Rui. it feels weird but I think I can make it work.
Thanks for reading!!!
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