Bro, I'm not an Undead!

1299  Scheme (2)

The shade of colour on Fulgardt's face shifted to a sickly one at once. His brows furrowed and his pupils dilated. Even the Immoral could only have reacted this way.

Primeval Deities…?!

It couldn't be!

How could a Divine as fresh as this one…?

A vein throbbed on Fulgardt's forehead. He had been about to shriek something at the Hybrid Warmoth when…

…!!!

Something else budded on his forehead, peeling away the strands of dark hair on his face with its exploding energy.

It was a brand that looked like a tree, its branches lifting up shining stars. Ju'wtte sparked and crackled from it violently.

Skullius' grin grew more sinister as Fulgardt's expression became even more grave.

Right then, the Hybrid Warmoth's already blank eyes turned glazed and unfocused. They trembled.

'Oh yes!'

Fulgardt rose from his seat and roared in fury as Amras blasted from him like a tide.

"RAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!"

A hand sprouted from his shoulder and clawed at his forehead. It was a third hand, not part of his physical body. It gripped the Stark Constellation and wrenched it from his face before crushing it. The brand turned into sparks that fizzled out instantly.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Fulgardt screamed, his face turned ugly as he advanced towards Skullius.

Elita, immensely confused hurried to stand before Skullius, her hand reaching for her sword.

The Hybrid Warmoth didn't move. A cool smile was on his lips. He seemed completely unconcerned by Fulgardt's advance.

"What's going on?" Elita asked him, but her eyes did not turn away from Fulgardt.

"YOU BRAT! YOU THINK THAT WAS FUNNY? CLEVER?!" Fulgardt foamed at the mouth.

Both Elita and even Rias were shocked by this reaction. The Incandescent Stagers around them quaked, stricken numb. It was one thing when Fulgardt was excited, and another when he was so angry he could explode.

How in the world did the 'peaceful' negotiation just now turn into this?

The Immoral stopped advancing towards Skullius, but he remained incensed to the utmost.

…And Skullius found immense pleasure in this.

He laughed a cold laugh that was meant to agitate Fulgardt even more. He had gotten the bastard!

"All of a sudden, you're no longer as mysterious as you appeared to me before, Fulgardt," he said calmly.

Fulgardt seemed to burn from the inside. Skullius stepped forward, passing Elita and stood face-to-face with the Immoral. They locked eyes but Fulgardt did not make a move as most in the hall would have believed.

Skullius gave him a smile.

"It's good you know that I know now," Skullius said and he kindly patted Fulgardt's cheek with one of his hands.

He then turned back and took his seat again. He urged Elita to sit back down as well.

"You too," Skullius then said to Fulgardt. The Immoral ground his teeth for a few seconds, wishing he could resist, wishing he could refuse. In the end, he sat down as instructed.

Elita gave Skullius an uneasy look and asked again, "What's going on? What did you do?"

All the experts in the hall were curious too. Even the Ode.

Skullius folded all four of his arms. He gladly explained.

"Ever since the world was ripped into three timelines, I had always expected to meet a Divine here. The only Divine Aigas has ever produced was Fulgardt, so I expected him to show up. In fact, I knew it would be much easier for him to pass through the timelines. Suzamete said that powerful experts would need to wrap themselves in their Territories to be able to accomplish this feat, but a Divine wouldn't need such a thing," he said. "There were a few surprises that caught me off guard though."

"I wasn't expecting this sockethole to be allied with this kid. And I wasn't aware that the masked man had a contingency like this. I also didn't expect the WILLS to react the way they did, taking the initiative to rush to their master. Hmph."

And indeed. Just earlier, Skullius had been caught by surprise when the WILLS jumped out of his darkness prison. He couldn't sense any reactions within the prison itself passively.

Skullius' eyes bore deep into Fulgardt's own.

"At first, I intended to find a way to destroy your WILLS, but then I thought of a better idea. I knew it was inevitable that I would run into you, whichever version, so I tinkered with the WILLS and placed my Stark Constellation on them. The Stark Constellation only works so well on mortals. I intended to use it on you when you had your guard all the way down and for a miniscule amount of time. That was all I imagined the Stark Constellation would last for anyway," he said.

"When your WILLS jumped out on their own, I thought for sure my plan was done for. I hadn't confirmed it, but I thought your WILLS would inform you that I had tempered with them – as I wasn't sure how much of my memories they would retain, if they even did. When I didn't see a reaction from you to my Stark Constellation attached meticulously with Creeds, and how you seem to processing my memories lackadaisically, I pounced. And look at us now. Our roles have reversed."

Elita was stunned.

All that? Skullius had planned all that?

She didn't quite understand, of course, how the Stark Constellation worked. The brand, provided that it was attached to a body and its soul, would allow Skullius access to the individual (all of them). On its own, it couldn't have bested Fulgardt, a Divine, but by using the remainders of his Creeds, Skullius managed to give it enough oomph to overwhelm Fulgardt for an instant.

Of course, what he had just told Fulgardt, about TITEMIUS and D'JORRO being his enemies, had been meant to divert his attention and weaken him for just that required instant.

"What does this mean exactly?" Elita then asked. She was sure this was some kind of victory, but as to the full nature of it…

Skullius chuckled.

"It means, I managed to peer into Fulgardt's memories and learn of his goals and vulnerabilities," he said.

Fulgardt growled.

"I swear—"

"Swear to who?" Skullius cut him off. "You restrained yourself just now because you know acting rashly could prove cataclysmic for you with what I know now. Hold onto that restraint. I know why you want to enter the Labyrinth of the Yoke. You played it off so casually, but who would have thought it was some really dark stuff."

"You seem to know quite a lot," Rias said.

Skullius turned to him.

"I do. I also know why he's keeping you around. He wants to get you to the Divine state quickly and elevate the prowess of your Imagining Technique into an Andori. A rather ambitious goal," he said as he turned back to Fulgardt. "Using the Imagining Technique to craft a weapon that can strike at the Broader Existence directly… That is exceedingly ambitious." n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Elita gaped. She didn't quite understand what the Imagining Technique was but she did understand what the implications of someone like Fulgardt getting a weapon that struck at the Broader Existence meant. After all, her Broodweiler was a similar type of weapon.

"So, you know it all, do you?" Fulgardt said. Skullius could have believed that there was no one Fulgardt hated more than him right now.

"I always wondered how you 'died', you know. I wondered even more about that after learning about the Broader Existence. That Labyrinth," Skullius said, shaking his head, "I couldn't have comprehended how dark, deep and twisted it really is. I barely scratched the surface. I'm glad you just enlightened this brat to the truth of it."