Mila
Mila walked with her group down a stone corridor and then down a spiral staircase about 120 meters. At the bottom was another nondescript stone corridor and this led to another large room which Mila calculated was directly under the entrance to the inheritance.
This room was almost identical to the testing rooms, only there were eight archway entrances and a waist high pedestal in the center with a basketball-sized black orb sitting on top of it. All the others who’d passed the first test were standing around the orb, seeming to have come out of the room’s seven other entrances, and there were three golems at the edges of the room, forming a triangle with all the cultivators at the center.
Her group moved forward to join everyone else, but Mila herself didn’t particularly like the setup, so she instead split off an illusory clone to continue on with the others and walked back to the staircase herself instead.
“Is there a reason you don’t want to come see me?” a female voice asked via telepathic messaging, Mila tracking the telepathy to the karmic link attached to her when she first entered. It was connected to the orb in the center of the room, and the bond had strengthened since she passed the first test.
“She can only send you messages,” Nana Xara quickly informed her, their link allowing her master to share her senses and thus hear the message. “If you want to respond you’d have to speak out loud.”
“I don’t really like the feeling of being trapped somewhere I could easily be killed,” Mila said aloud, responding to who she assumed was the soul fragment of the Shadow Thief.
“But why would I want to hurt you?” the voice asked, sounding confused. Its tone was angelic and smooth, maybe what the Shadow Thief originally sounded like, but Mila didn’t have a way to tell. What she did know was that the confusion was almost certainly faked, at least a little, as there was no reason for the soul fragment of the Shadow Thief to not know how threatening her actions had already been. Still, there was no reason to play her hand.
“I have no idea because I don’t know a thing about you.” Mila smiled as she continued walking toward the staircase. “That’s kind of the problem. Also, I’m enemies with pretty much everyone in that room.”
“Ah. Alright. Fair enough.” The soul fragment’s voice sounded contemplative. “The next test doesn’t require you to be personally present anyway, so long as your clone can talk. And you seem to be the most powerful cultivator to enter the competition, so I’ll let it slide.”
Then, from the black orb, sound emanated. “Let’s start the next round.”
The Soul Fragment of the Shadow Thief has offered you a quest.
Prove Your Worth II (F-Legendary)
You must accomplish the following:
Argue why the Shadow Thief’s inheritance should be left for you and convince the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment it should Not dieRewards: You may enter into a binding agreement with the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment to gain the Shadow Thief’s inheritance
Do you accept?
Yes/No
Mila didn’t immediately accept, but she could see almost all the others did so through her Noble’s Sight skill combined with her third eye.
“Why should I choose to give my inheritance to you?” the orb asked, no indication the question was aimed at any of them in particular.
Several people were about to speak, but Mila’s clone made a throat clearing sound and flared her aura, everyone giving her the chance to talk first. “What is it you want?”
“Revenge.” The woman’s voice sounded cold, very different from the friendly demeanor she’d used previously. “Against the War Dragon King, a powerhouse among B ranks, and twelve separate C ranks.”
“Interesting.” Mila’s clone took a step back, allowing the others a chance to talk first.
“I’m Prince Tomin Amoranth of the Amoranth Kingdom,” Tomin began, but the soul fragment interrupted him.
“I could already tell that much. I stole from your kingdom multiple times during my life and your skills are relatively obvious.” The soul fragment of the Shadow Thief sounded somewhat dismissive. “Why are you afraid of the succubus?”
Prince Tomin looked at Mila’s clone, not that surprised by her race, then back at the black orb. “I’m not.”
“Well, that’s an obvious lie. Do so again and I’ll have my golems kill you.” The black orb’s tone was neutral, as if she didn’t care all that much about killing a prince, which she probably didn’t. “Gale Clan girl, why is he afraid of the succubus?”
Ava was trembling slightly, looking from the orb, to the golems, to Mila’s clone, then to Tomin, and then back to the black orb. “She’s more powerful than us at the moment.”
“And what are her skills? So far I’ve only seen a Legendary grade illusion-based clone skill and what looks to be Heroic grade Telekinesis.”
Almost everyone looked surprised by that, seemingly not having guessed the grade of Mila’s skills, or at least her Telekinesis, but Ava recovered quickly and answered. “She has a disguise skill of some kind, a contract skill, and a charm skill. We don’t know about her last slot, but all her skills are of at least Legendary grade and she seems to have a Legendary grade or Heroic grade class based around contracts, making it nearly impossible she’ll even reach E rank in the future, let alone C or B rank.”
“Ms. Succubus, is that true?” the voice sounded somewhat disappointed.
“Except for the last part, yes.” Mila decided to speak casually through her clone and brought up her confidence by thinking back to how she’d felt when she’d destroyed the Amoranth Kingdom’s army, which would then be reflected in her aura. “I met all the requirements for my E rank class over half a year ago. Now all I need to do is level up, gain one more skill, and then raise all my skills to full mastery.”
“Can you prove that?” Ava asked angrily, fear the defining emotion of her aura.
In response, Mila’s clone just raised a hand and six small orbs of pure mana rose out of it, each emanating a different elementalization. “Is that good enough?”
“What does that even—” Ava began, but the voice of the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment cut her off.
“You have at least six Law Larvae and a cultivation technique which allows for elementalization at only the fifth stage.” She sounded contemplative. “I only know of three cultivation techniques which would allow for that for those elements and all three are highly controlled.”
“I’m an A rank talent. The tutorial was kind to me.” Internally, Mila was kicking herself for exposing her cultivation technique, opening up a bit of distrust in the soul fragment, but she hadn’t known enough about cultivation techniques to know elementalization wasn’t common. Still, she didn’t let it show in her emotions.
“Why are you enemies with the invasion forces. As a monster, you shouldn’t have many inherent conflicts.”
Mila thought for a second on how to answer. “As monsters, my boss and I didn’t have many options for System rewards, so, early on, we decided to side with the natives. My boss took the native leader as a slave and I’ve orchestrated the capture of all 12 Pillars of Conquest, my boss and I gaining the rewards.”
Technically, everything she said was true. She just left out the fact she had broken her connection with the System, allowing her to claim the pillars herself, and, as the soul fragment certainly had at least some ability to look at the world outside the inheritance site, she also proactively talked about Aalam, as the soul fragment almost certainly already knew his title.
“So, none of you are able to leave this world other than the genius succubus.” The soul fragment of the Shadow Thief sounded a bit happy. “Why should I choose anyone over her?”
“What about this mysterious boss of hers?” Ava asked, looking over at Mila’s clone while her aura showed terror.
“What was your System generated title, little miss succubus?” the soul fragment asked, but Mila’s attention was more on the leader of the Kindar Raiders and his thirty-seven subordinates who’d also passed the first test, the only ones to do so other than Ava, Tomin, and herself.
None of them had said anything yet, but all the subordinates were looking at their leader, who’d been about to say something when Ava beat him to it.
“The Mistress of Oaths and Deception.”
“And what about your boss?” the soul fragment continued. “A king talent I’m assuming if the System named you subordinate.”
“The Heavenly Spark Soul King. He was my life partner on our original world.”
“Heavenly spark, really?” The soul fragment sounded contemplative.
“Grandmother,” the leader of the Kindar Raiders then spoke up, “even if the succubus is extremely talented and might rise to C or B rank in the future, becoming capable of getting your revenge, there is nothing to force her to follow through. She specializes in contracts and, if she were to rise to your level, no contract you could make could bind her.
“There’s also only a chance she could rise to that level, while there’s another option which will allow you at least partial revenge immediately.
“Outside this inheritance right now is the grandson of the War Dragon King. With the Altar of Sacrifice you should have here in the inheritance, and the blood sacrifice of a few million F rank natives, you could put a curse on the bloodline of the War Dragon King, lowering the strength of even the War Dragon King himself.”
“And who are you?” The soul fragment sounded interested and Mila realized things were likely about to slip from her control.
The leader of the Kindar Raiders knelt with one knee and raised his opposite arm with fist outward while bowing his head. “Your great-great grandson through the line of Ronado, Holt.”
“There is a war dragon among the invasion forces, yet he didn’t enter the inheritance to compete for my treasures?” The soul fragment sounded interested. “What a stroke of luck. Yet why would he wait outside?”
“We were lucky before the apocalypse started, but we didn’t anticipate the interference of the succubus, grandmother.” Holt kept his eyes to the ground. “We originally made a deal with the Gale Clan from the Kingdom of Night to gain access to your inheritance, unaware you would trigger an apocalypse on Hira, and then the Gale Clan wanted to back out. But my father learned the wife of the Gale Clan leader had been raped by the fifth son of the War Dragon King and had a child, the Gale Clan leader wanting revenge for the slight, so we revealed the potential of the bloodline curse to get him to invest more.
“He did, and he sent in the boy unaware, but his son with the half dragon’s mother fled to the Amoranth Kingdom after finding out and it seems the Amoranth Prince revealed the plan to the half dragon, at least what was revealed to the Gale Clan. This, however, seems to be after the succubus did the same, having captured and interrogated our contact in the Gale Clan.
“Given the succubus is on the side of the natives and seems to have been trying to recruit the half dragon, she would have to be held or killed for the sacrifice to work.”
“Hmm.” The soul fragment sounded contemplative, and Mila so wanted to run. But she knew it wouldn’t work, so she didn’t even try, just sitting down on the bottom of the steps. “Alright then.”
One of the golems raced into Mila’s tunnel while the one she tested against ran down the stairs, both stopping five meters from her as a small bag holding some kind of dust appeared out of a spatial storage within the black orb and landed right in front of the Kindar Raiders leader. “That is a bag of Dragon Subduing Powder. Even if he’s a half dragon, that should knock him right out. Use it and bring him to me.
“Ms. Succubus, I’d still like to make a deal with you, but for now I am sorry to have to ask you to stay here for a while, at least until we come to an arrangement of some kind.”
Thirteen_Life_Legion
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thirteenlifelegion
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And a special thank you to Shadow of the Soul King's patrons, who get to read the latest chapters as they are written and edited.
If you are unable to support Shadow of the Soul King monetarily but are enjoying the story, please like, comment, and add Shadow of the Soul King to your reader list to help more readers see the story. It will be much appreciated, especially comments. As an author, feedback is always of value.
Also, any mentions on social media would be awesome. Let's see if we can get that thief who posted the first 25 chapters of the story to webnovel.com off the first page of a 'Shadow of the Soul King' google search.
Mila
Mila walked with her group down a stone corridor and then down a spiral staircase about 120 meters. At the bottom was another nondescript stone corridor and this led to another large room which Mila calculated was directly under the entrance to the inheritance.
This room was almost identical to the testing rooms, only there were eight archway entrances and a waist high pedestal in the center with a basketball-sized black orb sitting on top of it. All the others who’d passed the first test were standing around the orb, seeming to have come out of the room’s seven other entrances, and there were three golems at the edges of the room, forming a triangle with all the cultivators at the center.
Her group moved forward to join everyone else, but Mila herself didn’t particularly like the setup, so she instead split off an illusory clone to continue on with the others and walked back to the staircase herself instead.
“Is there a reason you don’t want to come see me?” a female voice asked via telepathic messaging, Mila tracking the telepathy to the karmic link attached to her when she first entered. It was connected to the orb in the center of the room, and the bond had strengthened since she passed the first test.
“She can only send you messages,” Nana Xara quickly informed her, their link allowing her master to share her senses and thus hear the message. “If you want to respond you’d have to speak out loud.”
“I don’t really like the feeling of being trapped somewhere I could easily be killed,” Mila said aloud, responding to who she assumed was the soul fragment of the Shadow Thief.
“But why would I want to hurt you?” the voice asked, sounding confused. Its tone was angelic and smooth, maybe what the Shadow Thief originally sounded like, but Mila didn’t have a way to tell. What she did know was that the confusion was almost certainly faked, at least a little, as there was no reason for the soul fragment of the Shadow Thief to not know how threatening her actions had already been. Still, there was no reason to play her hand.
“I have no idea because I don’t know a thing about you.” Mila smiled as she continued walking toward the staircase. “That’s kind of the problem. Also, I’m enemies with pretty much everyone in that room.”
“Ah. Alright. Fair enough.” The soul fragment’s voice sounded contemplative. “The next test doesn’t require you to be personally present anyway, so long as your clone can talk. And you seem to be the most powerful cultivator to enter the competition, so I’ll let it slide.”
Then, from the black orb, sound emanated. “Let’s start the next round.”
The Soul Fragment of the Shadow Thief has offered you a quest.
Prove Your Worth II (F-Legendary)
You must accomplish the following:
Argue why the Shadow Thief’s inheritance should be left for you and convince the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment it should Not dieRewards: You may enter into a binding agreement with the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment to gain the Shadow Thief’s inheritance
Do you accept?
Yes/No
Mila didn’t immediately accept, but she could see almost all the others did so through her Noble’s Sight skill combined with her third eye.
“Why should I choose to give my inheritance to you?” the orb asked, no indication the question was aimed at any of them in particular.
Several people were about to speak, but Mila’s clone made a throat clearing sound and flared her aura, everyone giving her the chance to talk first. “What is it you want?”
“Revenge.” The woman’s voice sounded cold, very different from the friendly demeanor she’d used previously. “Against the War Dragon King, a powerhouse among B ranks, and twelve separate C ranks.”
“Interesting.” Mila’s clone took a step back, allowing the others a chance to talk first.
“I’m Prince Tomin Amoranth of the Amoranth Kingdom,” Tomin began, but the soul fragment interrupted him.
“I could already tell that much. I stole from your kingdom multiple times during my life and your skills are relatively obvious.” The soul fragment of the Shadow Thief sounded somewhat dismissive. “Why are you afraid of the succubus?”
Prince Tomin looked at Mila’s clone, not that surprised by her race, then back at the black orb. “I’m not.”
“Well, that’s an obvious lie. Do so again and I’ll have my golems kill you.” The black orb’s tone was neutral, as if she didn’t care all that much about killing a prince, which she probably didn’t. “Gale Clan girl, why is he afraid of the succubus?”
Ava was trembling slightly, looking from the orb, to the golems, to Mila’s clone, then to Tomin, and then back to the black orb. “She’s more powerful than us at the moment.”
“And what are her skills? So far I’ve only seen a Legendary grade illusion-based clone skill and what looks to be Heroic grade Telekinesis.”
Almost everyone looked surprised by that, seemingly not having guessed the grade of Mila’s skills, or at least her Telekinesis, but Ava recovered quickly and answered. “She has a disguise skill of some kind, a contract skill, and a charm skill. We don’t know about her last slot, but all her skills are of at least Legendary grade and she seems to have a Legendary grade or Heroic grade class based around contracts, making it nearly impossible she’ll even reach E rank in the future, let alone C or B rank.”
“Ms. Succubus, is that true?” the voice sounded somewhat disappointed.
“Except for the last part, yes.” Mila decided to speak casually through her clone and brought up her confidence by thinking back to how she’d felt when she’d destroyed the Amoranth Kingdom’s army, which would then be reflected in her aura. “I met all the requirements for my E rank class over half a year ago. Now all I need to do is level up, gain one more skill, and then raise all my skills to full mastery.”
“Can you prove that?” Ava asked angrily, fear the defining emotion of her aura.
In response, Mila’s clone just raised a hand and six small orbs of pure mana rose out of it, each emanating a different elementalization. “Is that good enough?”
“What does that even—” Ava began, but the voice of the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment cut her off.
“You have at least six Law Larvae and a cultivation technique which allows for elementalization at only the fifth stage.” She sounded contemplative. “I only know of three cultivation techniques which would allow for that for those elements and all three are highly controlled.”
“I’m an A rank talent. The tutorial was kind to me.” Internally, Mila was kicking herself for exposing her cultivation technique, opening up a bit of distrust in the soul fragment, but she hadn’t known enough about cultivation techniques to know elementalization wasn’t common. Still, she didn’t let it show in her emotions.
“Why are you enemies with the invasion forces. As a monster, you shouldn’t have many inherent conflicts.”
Mila thought for a second on how to answer. “As monsters, my boss and I didn’t have many options for System rewards, so, early on, we decided to side with the natives. My boss took the native leader as a slave and I’ve orchestrated the capture of all 12 Pillars of Conquest, my boss and I gaining the rewards.”
Technically, everything she said was true. She just left out the fact she had broken her connection with the System, allowing her to claim the pillars herself, and, as the soul fragment certainly had at least some ability to look at the world outside the inheritance site, she also proactively talked about Aalam, as the soul fragment almost certainly already knew his title.
“So, none of you are able to leave this world other than the genius succubus.” The soul fragment of the Shadow Thief sounded a bit happy. “Why should I choose anyone over her?”
“What about this mysterious boss of hers?” Ava asked, looking over at Mila’s clone while her aura showed terror.
“What was your System generated title, little miss succubus?” the soul fragment asked, but Mila’s attention was more on the leader of the Kindar Raiders and his thirty-seven subordinates who’d also passed the first test, the only ones to do so other than Ava, Tomin, and herself.
None of them had said anything yet, but all the subordinates were looking at their leader, who’d been about to say something when Ava beat him to it.
“The Mistress of Oaths and Deception.”
“And what about your boss?” the soul fragment continued. “A king talent I’m assuming if the System named you subordinate.”
“The Heavenly Spark Soul King. He was my life partner on our original world.”
“Heavenly spark, really?” The soul fragment sounded contemplative.
“Grandmother,” the leader of the Kindar Raiders then spoke up, “even if the succubus is extremely talented and might rise to C or B rank in the future, becoming capable of getting your revenge, there is nothing to force her to follow through. She specializes in contracts and, if she were to rise to your level, no contract you could make could bind her.
“There’s also only a chance she could rise to that level, while there’s another option which will allow you at least partial revenge immediately.
“Outside this inheritance right now is the grandson of the War Dragon King. With the Altar of Sacrifice you should have here in the inheritance, and the blood sacrifice of a few million F rank natives, you could put a curse on the bloodline of the War Dragon King, lowering the strength of even the War Dragon King himself.”
“And who are you?” The soul fragment sounded interested and Mila realized things were likely about to slip from her control.
The leader of the Kindar Raiders knelt with one knee and raised his opposite arm with fist outward while bowing his head. “Your great-great grandson through the line of Ronado, Holt.”
“There is a war dragon among the invasion forces, yet he didn’t enter the inheritance to compete for my treasures?” The soul fragment sounded interested. “What a stroke of luck. Yet why would he wait outside?”
“We were lucky before the apocalypse started, but we didn’t anticipate the interference of the succubus, grandmother.” Holt kept his eyes to the ground. “We originally made a deal with the Gale Clan from the Kingdom of Night to gain access to your inheritance, unaware you would trigger an apocalypse on Hira, and then the Gale Clan wanted to back out. But my father learned the wife of the Gale Clan leader had been raped by the fifth son of the War Dragon King and had a child, the Gale Clan leader wanting revenge for the slight, so we revealed the potential of the bloodline curse to get him to invest more.
“He did, and he sent in the boy unaware, but his son with the half dragon’s mother fled to the Amoranth Kingdom after finding out and it seems the Amoranth Prince revealed the plan to the half dragon, at least what was revealed to the Gale Clan. This, however, seems to be after the succubus did the same, having captured and interrogated our contact in the Gale Clan.
“Given the succubus is on the side of the natives and seems to have been trying to recruit the half dragon, she would have to be held or killed for the sacrifice to work.”
“Hmm.” The soul fragment sounded contemplative, and Mila so wanted to run. But she knew it wouldn’t work, so she didn’t even try, just sitting down on the bottom of the steps. “Alright then.”
One of the golems raced into Mila’s tunnel while the one she tested against ran down the stairs, both stopping five meters from her as a small bag holding some kind of dust appeared out of a spatial storage within the black orb and landed right in front of the Kindar Raiders leader. “That is a bag of Dragon Subduing Powder. Even if he’s a half dragon, that should knock him right out. Use it and bring him to me.
“Ms. Succubus, I’d still like to make a deal with you, but for now I am sorry to have to ask you to stay here for a while, at least until we come to an arrangement of some kind.”
Thirteen_Life_Legion
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thirteenlifelegion
Vote for SotSK on TopWebFiction! http://topwebfiction.com/listings/shadow-of-the-soul-king/
And a special thank you to Shadow of the Soul King's patrons, who get to read the latest chapters as they are written and edited.
If you are unable to support Shadow of the Soul King monetarily but are enjoying the story, please like, comment, and add Shadow of the Soul King to your reader list to help more readers see the story. It will be much appreciated, especially comments. As an author, feedback is always of value.
Also, any mentions on social media would be awesome. Let's see if we can get that thief who posted the first 25 chapters of the story to webnovel.com off the first page of a 'Shadow of the Soul King' google search.
