CH786

“Okay, so I’ve got something to tell you guys but let's do our best to not make this talk worse than it has to be.”

“Empty skies Ben, what is it now?” His god asked, knowing well from experience that whatever his apostle was about to say was sure to be an absolute pain.

“Er, before that, let's all just also agree to keep this between the four of us. No need to let any other gods know about it.”

“So it’s worse than usual then?” Helori asked as she looked down at him from where she sat. “This should be good.”

“Ben, please just get to it.”

“Okay, okay, so I found out what my newest skill does, it’s very unique, definitely one I’m the first to get. Probably pulling from my three main inclinations too which is honestly kind of neat-”

“And also a poor sign given what two of them are,” Nare muttered, with Myriad not having it in him to deal with his apostle’s way of circling the issue.

“The point Ben, in ten words or less.”

“Fine, fine. I can send souls to hell now.”

“...Why though?”

Myriad asked as he crashed to the ground, leaving Helori still hovering in the air where she’d originally been sitting which couldn’t help but bring questions to Ben’s mind about just what the point of their little chair-play even was, holding himself back from asking in the end. While his god at least had something to say, the other two stayed silent, staring at him with a level of shock so extreme that even the knowledge goddess in the realm wasn’t immediately pressing him for questions for once, too busy mentally examining the implications and consequences of what he’d just said.

“Ahem, I have my theories. A lot of theories in fact. I got the job that gave me the skill after both acquiring witness of chaos and then trapping Ather in hell and well, Myriad already knows this but in the time since I’ve done some thought experiments on spell configurations that would let other hypothetical individuals open a portal to hell themselves and the system in a growing tool, isn’t it? It’s bound to me so it’s aware of my hypotheses on the topic so my best bet is that it used whatever potential already existed within me and applied it, ending up with a skill that can pull it off.” 

“...Ben, I’d just like you to know that, for the record, you are allowed to keep some things secret from me,” Myriad told him, sounding like he wanted to escape from the things he’d just been told. “Hell, you can keep things from the three of us just fine, there’s really no reason to go out of your way to share all of these little details.”

“I mean, I personally think it’s good to keep you updated so that if it ever comes up I don’t need to give you a much longer rundown.”

“I don’t want this to ever come up in any way at all! I don’t want to hear about this again, I mostly just want to forget you said it and move on with my day.”

“Listen, it’s not that big of a deal, it’s not like every god on the planet can’t do the same thing.”

“Yes, but we’re gods!”

“And I’ve seen no proof that with all of that age and power is a guarantee for even a drop of wisdom. Relax, I don’t plan on misusing this.”

“I feel like any use of the skill qualifies as misusing it.”

“It’s really just going towards practicing on the souls I’m already creating and maybe any demons I run into that I can’t fight any other way.”

“That’s… Wait, with all of the jobs and inclinations and probably even titles too with how many of those stupid things you have, what level have you gotten it to already?”

“I mean, you were just saying something about the value of keeping some secrets-”

“I changed my mind already so tell me!”

“A very reasonable, very cool, seven.”

“...Helori, just for my own morbid curiosity, what are the implications if my horrible, monster apostle awakens this absurd skill? Just what might it grow into for this poor world and mostly me to have to deal with?”

“I mean, that’s really impossible to say,” The goddess said, finally pulled from her thoughts enough that she came down to do what she would so frequently, plunging her arms into Ben’s chest and feeling around. “The most obvious result is that doing it will just get significantly easier. Ben, tell us a bit about how it feels to use the skill.”

“Well, for starters it looks like I can feel your soul now that you're in my range-”

A statement that made the goddess jump back to Myriad’s side before he could say another word but still left him to continue.

“...But I can already tell with my sacrilege that I can’t use it on you in its current form so you probably don’t need to react so extremely, and for the record, even if I could I wouldn’t.”

“Ahem, and any other details of the skill then?” She asked, trying to keep what bit of dignity she could after that display.

“Well, I need the target to be within range of the skill which is still only a bit more than a foot around me despite how much it’s grown today, but for the souls I create the mana cost is negligible. A couple of points and that’s it, which I can only assume would be the same if I were dealing with a proper ghost but can’t be sure of without testing. On the living though, well, when I did it to a few demons I didn’t look at the exact mana cost but from the feel I would estimate it was maybe a hundred points of the stuff to do and it took longer too but it’s reasonable to expect that that will improve as it grows a little more. Considering the magic demons hold it also wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that they fought it a bit while I was doing it, at least on a subconscious level, which means it might be easier to do on a regular person but since I won’t be testing that I can’t know for sure.”

“...Cheap,” Helori muttered as she listened to what Ben had already learned and theorized. “That mana cost is nothing for such an act, something like that shouldn’t be so easy.”

“Why not?”

“Because condemning a soul to hell shouldn’t be some easy thing, especially given that we’re talking about a mortal piercing a layer of reality on any level, that’s an outrageous achievement.”

“It’s what I do every single night I come up here for no mana cost.”

“...A fair point I suppose, when you put it like that I can’t help but wonder if your already present talent in passing one way through reality has left it easier for you to do it another. Still though… Myriad, Nare, both of you need to look at his soul.”

“Um, why?” Ben asked. “Myriad’s only done it to me once but I can not stress this point enough, I’m not into vore.”

“Ben, as your god I’m going to politely ask you to never describe my way of examining you like that again.”

“And it’s important because for years now, I’ve been the only one among us to look at your soul,” Helori told him. “An extra set of eyes could make trying to understand all of the changes in it and discuss them easier.”

“...Ugh, fine. In that case, Nare, is how you do it going to be more akin to how Myriad or Helori would?”

“Helori.”

“Oh thank god. Okay, get your looks then but let's not make this a frequent thing.”

He let Nare plunge his arms into him and closed his eyes for Myriad opening up at the seams around him. His mind may have shut down the only other time his god had taken him in to examine him but with all of the changes he’d been through since then, he didn’t want to count on his odds of getting that same mercy a second time until finally they were all done.

“So, anything worthwhile then?” He asked.

“Maybe, we’ll have to talk first,” Helori told him with a shrug. “For now though, it’s probably a good time to go down and talk with your ward, it will give us some time to talk among ourselves in the meanwhile.”

“Yeah, sounds good then. Let me know if you find anything interesting.”

He’d told them the main thing he’d intended to that night anyway and with that he went down, leaving the three gods alone and not getting to see as two turned to the goddess in their midst.