Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Chapter 275: Blasphemous to whom?

”And what is that?” Arlette asked the question that had plagued her since she saw Caius first retrieve the dial from the ring filled with Allegra’s legacy.

”It’s how we complete the manuscript,” Caius said and then twirled the dial in his hand for a second before he continued,

”As I was saying before, the Manuscript targets a part within you that governs your magical limits. It causes that part to swell but it’s an empty swelling only meant to increase the Evolutionary charge.

But that can serve as a foundation because now that your very essence has been made bigger, it has room to accept and grow something;

Divinity.”

”Divinity,” Arlette said in a voice so clearly tinged with disbelief, ”You’re talking about the energy of the gods?”

”Precisely,” Caius said.

”No one wields that except blessed by a god,” Arlette said.

”That’s just because it’s a godly asset and gods don’t like to share. Fortunately, we won’t be asking them to share. We’ll just be taking it.

Taking it from one long dead god in particular anyway.”

”With that, Caius took his hand off Arlette’s back—causing her to miss his touch immediately—as he grabbed what would be the indicating hand on the dial he was holding and then he turned it only slightly to let out the energy trapped within.

Instantly, the air in the room felt denser like a powerful presence had descended upon the office and soon, Arlette’s chest began to grow heavy. She resisted the heaviness with a rush of mana through her body and it alleviated the intensity of the aura.

Caius noticed what she did and nodded while turning the indicating hand back to seal up the energy.

”The oppressive feel doesn’t last and can be resisted because there’s nothing tangible to back it. No Faith. The god who possessed this divine energy, whoever it is, is long dead and its domains are long forgotten,” he said.

”Arlette raised herself with her hands on his chest.

”What is that thing?” She asked, referring to the dial.

In a sense, she already knew the answer but it was so incredible that she just didn’t want to believe it.

”This is called ’Vestiges of Divinity’. Or at least, that was what Allegra called it,” Caius said,

”For some, this is the true treasure in Allegra’s legacy.

Apparently, long ago, so long that it was even before Allegra’s time, a god fell to the earth, and most of its divinity had been stripped away as it died on the very ground. Where it fell, a vein of divine energy sprouted, and wars were waged to stake claim to it.

The details on how those went are foggy— Again, it was before even Allegra’s time, and that itself was tens of millennia ago.

Anyway, Allegra believed not all of this fallen god’s divinity had been taken so she set out in search of it. She found it but it was so ephemeral that it couldn’t be harnessed.”

Caius had been looking at the dial when he was speaking and then stopped to look at Arlette instead as he continued,

”You said it yourself, no one wields divine energy except those blessed by a god.

Those who found and battled for the vein that had sprouted from the god’s divine energy can be said to have been blessed by the god. Those who claimed it were certainly able to wield it for a time until it was used up. With the god dead, there wasn’t a constant stream of divine energy so it was a finite resource.

But this *holds up the dial* had even less of a connection to the god than the vein that had long been exhausted. Allegra trapped what was left within this dial and for the rest of her life, she worked on what I’d call reverse-engineering it. Trying to turn it into something like a naturally growing magical energy.”

”She tried to make more of it?” Arlette asked, incredulous.

”She did,” Caius answered.

”That’s blasphemous,” Arlette said.

”To whom?” Caius asked with a light smile, ”Like I said, the god this belonged to is long gone. No longer alive to stake a claim to it. Hell, the thing could barely be trapped without it turning into nothing.”

Arlette relaxed then.

”Yeah. I suppose you’re right,” she said.

Caius cocked his head slightly. It was easy to miss because she hardly ever talked about it but Arlette was quite the religious person. She had lectured him on Anyxyl, the goddess of Primordial darkness, and how the divine affected Dark Magic, after all.

When she spoke of the goddess, Arlette’s words were always tinged with the reverence of a devout so it made sense to Caius that she was so worried about offending her ’all-mighty goddess’.

He decided to tease her a bit,

”Let’s say it is

blasphemous, would that really matter? What would it matter that we take some of the power the gods keep to themselves for ourselves?” He asked.
”Don’t be so cavalier about that? You don’t offend the gods, Caius,” Arlette said and she looked very serious, ”You just don’t.”

’Huh,’ Caius thought, ’A shame that might be inevitable.’

”Anyway,” he said out loud and turned the indicating hand a lot more than he had done earlier.

”You’re going to just let it out?” Arlette asked as the oppressive energy swarmed the office again but she staved it off by circulating her mana as she had done before.

”I have to,” Caius said as he kept turning the indicating hand until it could go no more, signaling that the dial was fully opened.

The oppressive energy grew worse and Caius’s chest ached but he endured and watched as symbols began to flow out of the dial and float in the air.

”Are those...?” Arlette started, enduring the oppression far better than Caius was as she peered a bit harder at the symbols in incredulous disbelief,

”Are those Arcane symbols formed out of Divine energy?”

”Not exactly. They look like Arcane symbols but are actually Allegra’s creation. A lot like the symbols that make up the manuscript in your head.

Allegra was talented in multiple areas of specialization but tinkering with the Arcane Codex was her craziest field of interest and also where she thrived best.

She realized she couldn’t just seal up divine energy that had no ties to any living god so to even have a chance in her experiments to create more, she had to turn the energy into something more tangible and feasible.

Arcane symbols failed. After all, they are not quite capable of housing divine energy because they are ordained to govern Mana so Allegra created her own symbols. Fortunately, she already had success in that through the creation of her Evolution-charge cheating Manuscript.”

While he was speaking, Caius brought the symbols within Allegra’s manuscript to mind. Because he had manipulated the symbols with his mana earlier, he could recreate them with Mana, causing them to appear in midair.

He dropped the empty dial now and waved his hand causing Mana to strum out and create a what looked like a massive Arcane circle only it was empty and waiting to be inlaid with symbols.

With a wave of his hand, Caius pulled the symbols of Allegra’s manuscript closer and got to work. He’d inspect them for a while and then frown before flicking his finger at them so they flew off and vanished into nothing. Then he’d move to the next and most likely do the same thing.

Most of the symbols of Allegra’s manuscript were tied to the various emotions needed by different Vampires as Evolution Triggers to access a human/humanoid’s Evolutionary charge but they weren’t needed so Caius was quick to get rid of them, leaving behind only the symbols relating to Arousal.

I.e only the symbols relating to his Evolution Trigger.