Situation Above Ground

After Nox rested for a good while, he woke up still in the tank, feeling quite refreshed.

A rotation of guards was decided since Nox was currently unable to defend himself while the rest of the girls would go back to their duties.

While inside the tank, Nox began to put together spell formulae for his future necromancy tests.

To start with, obtaining a soul so as to bind it to something seemed quite simple yet it was incredibly difficult.

Nox's Soulsucker, despite its name didn't really such out a whole soul, more like violently tore it from its vessel or tore away at it when it was leaving a corpse.

Animating a corpse shouldn't prove to be too difficult but making it exhibit the power it had in life would be extremely troublesome.

Establishing a link between phylactery and the corpse vessel ought to be quite difficult as well but the binding itself should go fine since the Philosopher's Stone was already equipped to store souls.

All in all, it was a massive endeavour and despite making a bunch of untested spells to try out, Nox utterly loathed his inability to just leave the tank and get on with his life.

Truth be told, he could probably leave it already and walk around just fine but his recovery was far from complete so he thought it best to stay put. Not that his girls would let him leave the tank before a full recovery.

As the days of boredom continued for Nox though, various forces moved in Orario. The Loki Familia's defeat of the Demi Spirit left a certain group of individuals at a bit of a loss since they did not expect it.

It was Enyo and his cohort Ein, also known as Dionysus and Filvis. The latter however, was more worried with other things.

Having grown very close to Nox's Red persona, Filvis nearly had a small heart attack when she learned from a message handed to her by an unknown Pallum that called herself his associate, that he had been gravely injured and was in the process of recovery so he wouldn't be meeting her for a while.

This information left her worried beyond measure, making her god's hampered plans a secondary concern but the problem was that she simply had no idea how to reach him since it was always him coming to her, it made her realize how little she truly knew of her supposed partner.

Then again . . . Could she blame him?

Filvis doubted his secrets could be more damning the her own, something which made her feel terrible but even then, there was something she knew.

When she was by his side, she felt at home, felt safe, like nothing else in the world mattered as all her concerns faded away.

She was in love and she knew it but at the same time . . . How could a filthy creature like her be worthy of him?

Filvis was plagued by self doubt and self loathing.

One could only imagine what she would think if she knew her beloved red was a third spirit, third dragon, third human monstrosity that was planning on making himself an undead abomination.

Nox had asked Aisha to keep an eye on Filvis and the experienced amazoness could see right through the elf. After all, despite how tainted she considered herself to be and all of the cruel event she had experienced, Filvis still wore her heart on her sleeve.

She could hide the specific of her suffering quite well but said suffering was obvious on her face and general aura.

Aisha, having received information from Nox about her circumstances so she could better look out for her while he was out of commission, could pretty much figure out what went on inside the elfess' pretty little head.

Currently, the amazoness was wondering whether she should go beyond the call of duty and nag her lover another beauty since she thought her chances of success to be pretty good.

Onto other matters, Loki didn't take the news of Nox's situations too well. She was not dumb enough to blow up in front of her Familia members but she immediately devolved into nearly tearing herself apart with worry the moment she was alone.

The moment Riveria was rotated out of guard duty and returned to the surface, Loki pulled her in for some questioning.

"How is he!?" Loki immediately questioned as soon as she got Riveria alone in a room.

The high elfess raised her brow at Loki's extreme lack of composure.

"He's fine for now." Riveria responded.

"Recuperating in his little fortress town on the 50th floor." She added.

"Why didn't he return to the surface?" Loki continued to ask.

"He judged he was in no condition to make the trip o he elected to take care of his healing down there." Riveria replied.

"What!?" Loki became even more worried.

She knew Nox's status so she was intimately aware of how difficult it was to kill him and that his recovery was usually nearly instantaneous so she was truly confused over what sort of condition could leave him compromised for more than a couple of minutes.

"What exactly is his condition? Did he say anything in specific. Finn only told me about the general situation." Loki inquired.

"I honestly don't know much about it. Noix looks absolutely fine from the outside, just tired, lethargic even but . . ." Riveria remembered Nox's own description of his situation.

"But?" Loki drove her on.

"He said something about having used too much power to the point his body and soul were near collapse?" Riveria mentioned doubtfully.

She had retained those words in particular, "his soul was near collapse". Riveria was not aware of what that meant but seeing Loki's chalk white expression as soon as she said it, she heart sank.

"His soul was near collapse!? Those were his exact words!?" Loki grabbed Riveria by the shoulders.

"I . . . Yes but . . . What does that mean?" Riveria asked confused.

"That's . . . Not something you should know." Loki shut her down.

"You have access to his little teleportation network right?" The red haired goddess asked.

"Yes?" Riveria responded with a bad feeling.

"Well then! You're gonna bring me to him!" Loki said.

"Somebody need to cram into that little worrying bastard's head that somethings are just not meant to be done!" Loki said with barely contained rage.

It seemed like she had figured something out . . .

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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!

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You'll get to read up to FOUR weeks ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.

There's also my other novels Kage of Kages and FATE of DxD, do check them out!

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