Chapter 23:

  Drinking tea with a god is a totally different experience. First of all, this tea is absolutely delicious, to the point its unfair. Same with the cookies. I'm surprised that Aftermath even can eat considering his lack of a stomach… or a throat… or any other internal organs or structures beyond ectoplasm. Second of all, its surprisingly tense, yet also soothing at the same time. I'm pretty sure that the suppression is just the natural suppression of a more powerful being eating tea and biscuits with you, and the soothing feeling coes from his life affinity. Though he has an air of ungodly (or godly if you want to get specific) potential for destruction. And third, I'm a tier 1 sitting in front of a tier 4 or possibly 5 being.

  “2 things. 1:What tier are you? And 2, what do you mean, “Found me”?” I ask skeptically. I feel surprisingly not afraid. I remember Snowstorm telling me that I would feel an overwelming force trying to crush me. I do feel the force, but it feels like its just passively rebuffed by my scales or something. I can feel it, but I also can't feel it. Make sense? No? Well, too bad.

  “to answer the first question, It is considered rude to ask about another's status. However, I will divulge that I am a tier 5, or at least I am supposed to be.”

  “Supposed to be?” I ask curiously.

  “A fight against an entity resulted in the death of 4 gods and my powers were crippled. We won, but at a cost.” The skeleton explains. He doesn’t move his jaw at all when he speaks. His voice feels kind of like an intrusive thought in my head to me, and sometimes I doubt myself as to whether I heard him right.

  “Entity? what kind?”

  “You are too young to learn.” The god tells me, and I frown.

  “What do you mean, too young?” I ask indignantly. “I'm old enough for most stuff!”

  “Not for this, young timeling.” The gos looks at me with a flicker in his frame that reminds me of mild amusement.

  “Fossil fuel.” I say flatly.

  “To answer the second part of your question,” he says, “You are also too young too know.”

  “You sure love leaving cliffhangers, don't you?” I say flatly.

  “I have to pass the time somehow.”

  “Really? You can't just pick up golf or something instead of torture?”

  “I did that 300 years ago. After winning 3 world championships I stepped down.” Aftermath tells me, clearly sounding a little smug.

  “Are you seriously flexing on my right now?” I stare flatly at him. “You've lived for how long, millions of years? It'd be sad if you weren't good at most sports.”

  “Billions.” He corrects me. “And I agree with you. Though as a god, I require some sort of flex. Being a jack of all trades, master of all is just a part of my appeal to the masses.”

  “Speaking of the masses, what's with the elf in the corner?” I ask, gesturing to Miria. Miria is currently in the middle of an aneurysm or something, as she is switching between shooting reverent glances at aftermath and me,and looking really confused. She clearly knows more then me, though, as she clearly isn't arguing with the way I'm casually chatting with the bone emperor.

  “Ah, yes, you have met Miria. She is my Priestess and the next paladin in the church of life.” That sounds important.

  “I have no idea what any of that means, but it sounds cool.” I say wisely. A floating bone detatches from the god and whacks me on the head.

  “Ow!”

  “A paladin is a person a god gives power. However, they are forever limited to being 1 tier below the god they are contracted too, in exchange for wielding some of their power and drawing from a porion of their mana pools. It also provides special race and class evolutions specific to the god.”

  “Oh, that's cool.” I say with a nod. “Wait, classes?” I ask. “Thats a thing dragons can’t have, right?”

  “Some can. I myself have a class.” Aftermath says with an imagined smug look.

  “How do I get a class?” I ask, curious. Getting a class which I can level seperately from my race in order to increase my maximum attributes and gain special skills seems very useful to me. “Can I use my essence with it?”

  “Essence only works with race, not class. Though if your class is better attuned to you, there might be some special benefits. However, you need a humanoid form at the very least in order to use a class.”

  “How would I get a form like that? Also why would I want one? I get that the class is cool and stuff but I don't find the idea of being a bipedal monkey to be appealing.” I say flatly. Miria gives me a glare before realizing something and blushing in embarrassment. I start to laugh. “I'm joking, I'm joking, don't round your ears over it.” I say with a grin to the life elf. She nods hesitantly.

  “I-I apologize…” She mutters.

  “Having loyal followers is nice, but they tend to be meek around their god, no matter how free-spirited. It makes for bad conversation partners.” Judging by her lack of reaction, the dragon only said that to me. I can imagine it, too. Having followrers to do what you don't want too seems nice, though.

  “Why stay holed up here?” I ask curiously, looking up at Aftermath.

  “I was waiting. Now, I am not, since what I was waiting for has arrived. Let us leave this place in an hour.” He turns to Miria. “You heard me.” She looks like she was given a divine blessing by his words alone. She turns and runs out of the room at a speed far eclipsing my speed by at least 100 times. Tier 3 speed is no joke, damn.

  “What is she going to do?” I ask Aftermath.

  “A god is descending. There need to be preparations.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  <{(0)}>

  3 billion people. That's how many people are in the church below right now. 8 spacial arrays were needed to expand the church to fit everyone comfortably. The inside is over 20 kilometers long now. The room itself has been modified as well, looking like a massive theatre room or something with a stage in the center, various areas to dine(some floating) and seats galore. Me and Aftermath sit together, looking down at the events from the large triangular hole in the roof. We are obscured by shadows, the area around us darkened to an unholy (or holy) level. (Yes I made the same joke again, sue me. )

  “This feels nice.” I say with a sigh, practically breathing in the darkness around myself. I've gained a solid 200 essence from it, which is good, but its not useful for anything right now.

  “I have 5 modes for this room, each designed for a different type of essence. As you wield dark essence, I assumed it would be comfortable to you. Plus the obscuration the dark mist provides.”

  “Wait, this is mist?”

  Thwack!

  “Can you stop hitting me with that bone?!”

  “Grow a brain cell or 2 first and I'll consider it.”

  “Bloody fossil fuel.”

  “It's starting.” Aftermath points to the center stage with one skeletal claw. On the stage is a woman and a man, both life elves, both tier 3. One seems to be miria, while the other is a large man with silver hair and a huge crate in his arms. It looks as large as Evelyn is.

  Miria begins to speak into the microphone center stage and billions of eyes turn to her as she speaks. I watch for a moment before frowning.

  “Why can't I hear anything?” I ask, confused.

  “No sound can escape here. No sound can enter either. We have a queue to enter, don't worry.”

  “Do I really have to go on the stage?” I ask hesitantly.

  “No.” I let out a breath of relief.

  “But I'm bringing you anyway.” That breath catches in my throat.

  “You fuckin-”

  “Now's our chance!” The man sets down the box to reveal a large, green and white axe that looks to be made of bones. Aftermath vanishes from beside me. Then I feel a subtle tug from the shadows. I meld into them and that tug guides me where to go. I can only assume it's Aftermath guiding me. Now, in the shadows, as I travel through the shadow space, I can hear Miria. I look up through the shadows under her feet, still in the shadow space, as she speaks.

  “I give you, Aftermath, the god of life and destruction!” An aura spreads out from the axe. The aura doesn't seep into the shadow space, but it’s some potent stuff. every single living being in the church falls to their knees, head bowed, as a man picks up the axe. The right side of the man's body is covered in flesh, the left side sharp bone. The man has deep green eyes and sickly white hair. 2 skeletal wings jut from his back.

  I fell a pull and am tugged out of the shadow space right beside him with a yelp I quickly muffle. Now everyone sees me and the man, who I know is aftermath. Everyone is too busy praising the glory of the bone emperor to even notice I'm right here.

  “Do you cultivate fanatics or something?” I ask aftermath.

  “It's useful, you’ll see.” He says with a grin. His voice sounds less ethereal in this form, but his aura is as strong as ever.

  “You said you needed transport for something earlier, right?”

  “That I do.” I nod.

  “Well, you're in luck. You have the church of life.”

  <{(0)}>

  “I regret letting him leave. I should have stopped him. Maybe if we just talked a little more we could have convinced us to let us come.” Evelyn said, chewing on her fingernails. “What if one of the forestry dragons hurt him? What if he doesn't come back?” She looks up at Snowstorm who offers her a reassuring smile.

  “He will be fine.” He said, though he sounded like he was convincing himself as much as her. “He's the kind of guy to gaslight a god into questioning his own existence. What can go wrong?”

  <{(0)}>

  “That went well.” I say as I fly out a hole in the canopy. On my back is a man drinking tea with an amused expression.

  “I tend not to enjoy social events of that sort, but you and your shadow movement technique made it interesting.” What might he be referring to? The fact that I ate food literally out of peoples hands by reaching out of their own shadows with my jaws and clamping them shut on the food. Nobody believed anybody, and there was total chaos.

  “It was hilarious, and delicious. Though my ability is a skill, not technique. Snowstorm always tended to correct me on that too.”

  “Snowstorm?” Aftermath asked, intrigued.

  “Yeah. Total frostface, but he's my brother, so I love em, you know?”

  “So its ice this time…” Aftermath mutters to himself, barely loud enough for me to hear.

  “What?”

  “It's not something that should concern you for some time yet.” He tells me as we fly over the city. “Just that he isn't alone in his head. He is also one of the ones I was looking for, like you. I recommend we go to him now.” He hops off my back, and suddenly a skeleton the size of a small mansion flies beside me. This gets the attention of a lot of people flying below, but who is dumb enough to fly anywhere near a god? Most people take one look at us and start praying for forgiveness for daring to rest their unworthy pupils in our direction.

  “Is being in your true form a good idea?” I ask, concerned.

  “Every form is my true form. I have no defined shape, simply the one I choose.” He says with a skeletal shrug.

  “Fine, be cryptic.” I roll my eyes. “Just answer my question, oh so wise bone king.”

  “Bone emperor, and fine. Who would mess with a god? There is no problem with being in this form.”

  “That's all I wanted to hear.”

  In front of us the canopy begins to open up. The hole is quite small, though that's relative. The hole is a hundred meters wide and we can both easily fly out into the vast blue skies above. I grin as I shoot straight up at the speed of a fighter jet. Aftermath has absolutely 0 trouble keeping up.

  “How high is your speed stat anyway?” I ask.

  “10000.” He responds. “All my stats are the maximum amount for my tier, though my durability is double that.”

  “How?” I ask curiously.

  “I own one of 5 passive stat boosting abilities. You can only be born with one, and it increases as you get stronger. Mine is called Absolute Durability.” He explains. Slowly we angle ourselves towards there Snowstorm and Evelyn were and I nod.

  “I have one too. Does yours do something else?” I ask.

  “Yes.” He nods, not seeming surprised that I have an apparently super rare skill.

  “What does it do?” I ask, but he doesn’t respond. He seems to be looking forward to a large opening around 10 miles away. Isn't that closer then they were before? They didn't start to follow us, right? right.

  <{(0)}>

  “We should wait.” Evelyn insists, gripping my tail as I move through the forest with purpose.

  “No, we shouldn’t.” I respond simply. “That idiot probably got himself locked in a cell or something, and we need to get him out.”

  “And you think that you going would do you any better?” She asks, frowning as she scales my back to sit on my shoulder, which happens to be one of the few places I don’t have spikes.

  “I'm smarter then him.” I say with a simple nod. It's not like it's up for debate that I've always been the smart one. I don't feel prideful about it or anything though. I've always felt like I had an innate advantage over Abhor in that area.

  “Het, look, a clearing!” Evelyn leans forward and points. I walk around a feew trees and enter the clearing. The clearing is large and filled with flowers. A few logs lie by the side, and in the center of the clearing is a massive hole that goes straight down.

  “What is this…?” I mutter, not getting too close to the hole. My instincts tell me not to go near it.

  Then my instincts go haywire as I feel an overwhelming level of vitality directed towards me. I feel like I'm being stared at by something more powerful that anyone I've ever met before this.

  “What…” Then a skeletal creature lands directly in front of me, along with Abhor.

  “What the fuck…”

  “2 in one day. Luck seems to be on my side.” The skeleton looks down at me with a metaphorical grin.