Chapter 387: Dragon Strategy 3
Chapter 387: Dragon Strategy 3
Silence settled in the air with what Aldrich said. Valera, a seasoned warrior in her own right, and Medula, a millennial demon who had seen countless fighters live and die, both stood in a silence punctuated by awe.
That was the nature of Rella's strength. Overwhelmingly destructive in an awing way that was akin more to a natural disaster, an unstoppable hurricane or seismic annihilation more so than the movements of a mighty fighter.
Where one generated respect of technique and movement, the other ripped up terror from that deep, primal pit where all living beings knew to fear the wrath of nature. The fundamental instinct to stay alive, to survive – Rella's mere presence went against all of that.
"Rella?" said Fler'Gan, wondering what the big deal was.
"Right. You were locked in your study when she was around," said Aldrich.
"Indeed. My research into immortality took the greater part of two centuries. In that time, I removed myself from worldly affairs," said Fler'Gan.
"I'm sure the insanity didn't help either," said Valera.
"No, it did not. But I must say, it did help me shut out distractions."
On top of that, Aldrich realized, Fler'Gan had never been a part of his legion. In the game, it was impossible to raise Fler'Gan as he was technically a boss type monster with undead immunity. But it looked like the host of random resistances and immunities that being a boss gave, buffs that were there mostly for game balance issues to prevent cheese strategies, did not exist anymore.
Granted, boss type beings still had higher stats, but they did not have undead immunity anymore.
Because Fler'Gan had never been a part of Aldrich's legion, the scholar had never gotten to learn about Elduin after he decided to bury himself in his underground study.
"Rella is a demigod. Daughter of Rathos, highgod of thunder," said Aldrich.
"Rathos? Unsurprising. He must have sired an entire kingdom's worth of children in his long reign, particularly when one considers his lack of self-control involving women," said Fler'Gan. "But precious few mortals can ever inherit more than a mere droplet of divine blood."
"Rella is special," said Medula. "More than half the blood that flows through her veins is divine Ichor. She is a one in a millennium anomaly. In past times, she would have been hailed as a hero among heroes, destined for nothing but greatness.
Alas, the god factors she inherited made her more monster than hero."
God factors were the domains that deities represented or governed over. They could range from elements to locations to concepts like lust or war.
In the case of Rathos, as a high god, he had multiple god factors, many of which were contrasts to each other. He was the god of war and heroism, life giving rain and destructive thunder, carnal lust and bloodlust. He was a warrior god meant to show that men could be both noble and brutal in times of hardship.
"How many factors? An ordinary demigod would struggle to manage one," said Fler'Gan.
"Three. War, thunder, and bloodlust," said Medula.
"Three. Quite astounding. And all the 'negative' ones, too," said Fler'Gan. "Rathos in his rages could topple entire countries. If this spawn of his is anything like that, then I can see now where the awe is warranted."
"It isn't awe here. It's concern. In the main timeline I was a part of, Rella killed Rathos," said Aldrich.
"She slew her father? The highgod? Lord of the Elumen pantheon?" Fler'Gan's three eyes narrowed down in disbelief.
"Yes, and Rella isn't the best at controlling her powers," said Aldrich. "She doesn't so much fight as she's sent in a direction and everything in that path gets annihilated, regardless of friend or foe. She can handle her god factors, but like you said, without full divine blood, there's always going to be side effects."
"In Rella's case, this manifests in a particular instability of the mind when engaging in battle," said Medula.
"A berserker's rage," said Valera. "It is similar to my Reversion."
"I should say it is far superior," countered Medula. "Vampiric Reversion and Rella's Godrage are similar mental debuffs, but your clan's bloodline renders you into a brute forced beast bereft of any access to your knightly training.
Rella's Godrage not only enhances the powers she inherited from her godfactors, but it does nothing to quell the the execution of her techniques.
This makes her remarkably deadly to all our foes, but at the same time, a tremendous risk as well."
Medula rubbed her chin. "One that I am having second thoughts entertaining. If Rella slips into a godfactor induced rage, it will take a tremendous amount of effort to stop her."
"How did you get her to stop usually?" asked Aldrich. He had only ever seen the Necropolis through the lens of an enemy. Hence, he knew Rella as a massive threat with large AoE and targeting that did not distinguish between friend and foe well.
But he never really gave a thought about the logistics of trying to field a living force of nature like Rella.
"Prevention, not reaction, like with most problems, is key. Mel fights her occasionally to stop her bloodlust from building up excessively, or we prevent her from fighting to the point she falls into Godrage," said Mel. "Elsewise, if she does slip into her godfactor induced rage, there are three main ways we halt her.
One, Mel again fights her and subdues her. This causes untold amounts of destruction and removes two of the Necropolis's strongest fighting forces. A highly unwanted situation.
Two, Wai'ki communes with her soul and calms her. This is inherently risky as it requires Wai'ki to physically come in contact with Rella, and Rella is powerful enough to kill Wai'ki in a few strikes.
Three, I cast [Outworld Imprisonment] on her. In a void of nothingness, Rella eventually calms down. it is how she was subdued when she was a child, thrown into the deepest depths of a thoroughly barren dungeon."
Medula stared accusingly at Aldrich. "But of course, if I am saving the spell for your plans, then I cannot very well use it for Rella, no? You may think Rella's godrage is only our problem, but if she begins her rage in your throne room, you can bid farewell to that throne of yours.
And with it, potential access to your trial quests and progress in Usurping this tower."
"That's if she gets into her rage," said Aldrich. "I doubt Rella's going to get worked up enough over a bunch of dragonkin. At best, the strongest of them will be level 50."
Meanwhile, Rella was a level 90 boss with cheat tier abilities granted from her divine blood. Her resistances were jacked sky high and she rocked a complete immunity to fire and lightning. The fire immunity alone was an absurdly good passive to have as an undead, but that just scratched the surface of her powers.
Her pupils, like those in full blooded gods, were divine runes that had permanent Truesight. Not only that, but they were runes of destruction inherited from her father, containing Rathos's signature ability to, with but a gaze, smite any existences below level 40 into smoldering dust with few exceptions.
She had her necrolightning as her most powerful magical ability, which she could spam freely and across massive areas with seemingly infinite capability due to her divine blood. Ichor, the life essence of the gods, was essentially like a fusion reactor where the average being ran on a regular old gas based engine.
Entities with ichor flowing through them could multiply their mana pool and mana regeneration tremendously. Any mana they absorbed from the environment was multiplied several times fold where average mortals actually absorbed environmental mana at a net loss.
But it was in her physical abilities that she shone. Her physical stats were tremendously high, and she made expert use of them with a class as a Monk. Due to her war godfactor, she had access to a variety of mighty powerful martial skills that included things like the [Skysplitter], a blow that could split mountains in half, and, most deadly of all, the [Godfall] that involved an insanely high powered throw followed by a heaven and earth shattering barrage of necrolightning.
[Godfall], as its name indicated, was sufficiently strong enough to kill gods, the strongest of whom hovered from level 90 to 100.
That was to say, throwing Rella against dragonkin that could not even break level 60 was like tossing a fully trained Imugi cyberninja against a crowd of shitty blue grade ARMA police. A complete slaughter.
"If the dragonkin are not beyond level 50, then I can see this working," said Medula. "But even then, depending on their numbers, the time of combat engagement may be high, and that is the most important factor in determining whether Rella falls into her rage or not."
"I'll make sure she doesn't."
"And I am supposed to take your word for this?"
"You're not supposed to. But you'll end up having to. Unless you want to waste Necropolis forces on the dragonkin. I reckon it'll be much easier to have Rella mop them up."
"…Fine," Medula conceded after thinking the situation through for a minute. "I will trust your competence for this."
"As you should," said Valera. "My dear's competence has not failed me."
"Let's hope his generosity extends to the likes of me," said Medula, sarcasm faintly etched into her voice.
"Generosity or not, the end result is the same: you'll get your body sooner rather than later," said Aldrich. "And with that, your freedom. Now then, assuming you have no further complaints, I'm going to excuse myself here."
"What? No further favors to request of me?" said Medula, the sarcasm growing stronger in concentration.
Aldrich ignored her tone and got up, patting his suit of dust and turning his back on her. "Nope. I'm done here, and I have a dinner appointment that's calling my name."