Ascension of the Dark Seraph-Chapter 342: Last Obstacle

Someone betrayed him.

A traitor was hiding among friendly faces.

Lucivar is not stupid.

He once loved his mom and brother deeply, willing to do anything for them, even if it meant sacrificing his own life in the process, so he knew one thing. People can change. And most of the time, in a world like this, they changed for the worse.

Someone betraying him, Lucivar had considered that possibility long ago.

In fact, he began thinking about that back when he killed his own doppelganger.

Just the look Mirel and Leandra gave him was enough to make him consider that possibility.

But what he didn’t expect was for them to find the opposing avatar first.

None of them knew about his real identity as the Blessed Oracle, as the avatar of multiple Gods, so he dismissed the thought of them betraying him to this extent. At the time, it was extremely unlikely, and that’s precisely the reason he was now caught off guard.

Never again.

Lucivar would never dismiss any possibility, no matter how unlikely it seemed.

He will be more attentive to his surroundings.

Since it has already come to this, there’s only one thing that he could do.

Get stronger.

Cultivating his Supernatural Ego further now that he has already reached the Chrysalis rank would be too slow. Lucivar was expecting a fight soon, so he needed to be stronger quickly and deal with the opposing avatars as quickly as possible.

And there are two ways he could do that.

Either he used the two Divine Merits that he was owed by Loki and Tamtu, or his Divine Elevation.

Using the Divine Merit is a surefire way to get stronger, but before that, he wanted to know the reason he couldn’t achieve the third Divine Elevation. At this moment—the amount of Loki’s Divine Blood in him should warrant him breaking through to the third Divine Elevation.

But he couldn’t.

It was stuck, refusing to go through an invisible limiter.

Lucivar glanced at Gandr, coiling at the base of Loki’s statue, seemingly in deep slumber.

"Hey!" He called, forcing Gandr to open his reptilian eyes and hiss in annoyance. "Loki still owes me a maximum mastery over one of my abilities. I did what he asked. I made sure those guys suffer for what they did to Morriva."

"Just pick an ability, and father will take care of the rest," Gandr answered nonchalantly.

He even went back to sleep, not waiting for Lucivar to make his decision.

Since that was the case, Lucivar crossed his arms and rubbed his chin.

Contemplating which abilities he should pick to fully master, one that’ll help him fight the avatars.

But then he realized he didn’t need to contemplate.

He didn’t need to fret about which ability to choose.

Out of all his abilities, there’s one that fits Loki and is also one of his strongest abilities.

In fact, it could be his strongest ability, as even Caldaros couldn’t escape its grasp once it was activated.

"The Fool’s Trick..." He mumbled and then spread his arms in welcome. "Make it max mastery!"

Lucivar wanted to know the full extent of that ability.

Beyond that, the ability was difficult to train, as it required actual victims to practice on—making it one of the least mastered in his arsenal. However, with Loki’s promise to elevate one of his abilities to full mastery, that limitation no longer mattered.

However, Gandr immediately sneered upon hearing this.

He looked at Lucuivar sharply.

"Hah! You wish. Pick another one."

"What? Why not? Loki said anything, so I’m picking that, and that’s the end of the discussion."

Lucivar wasn’t going to get swindled.

Earlier, he was promised that it was going to have any ability.

He assumed there were no exceptions.

So, he will not back down from his choice.

"Don’t be stubborn and trust me. Pick another ability, what about Greedy Grasp? That’s a lot better."

"No, you’re not going to change my mind. I’m picking the Fool’s Trick."

Gandr looked at Lucivar dead in the eyes, smiling mischievously as if he were looking at a dead man.

"Have you ever heard the saying, ’Be careful what you wish for’? You’d do well to heed that saying, as it really reflects this situation. Think logically." He pressed on, his tone firm, as he tried to dissuade Lucivar from making this decision. "The Fool’s Trick isn’t a normal ability. It’s something no mortal should possess. Even some of your predecessors—refused to touch it. So, think again. You are clever, aren’t you?"

As he said that, he turned away again.

Knowing Lucivar, that warning should be enough to make him think again.

"In that case, I want the Greedy Grasp and the answer to why I can’t reach the third Divine Elevation, a clear answer, not a riddle," Lucivar negotiated. "Since you failed to meet your own condition, I should be compensated, right?"

Gandr opened his eyes, stunned.

Behind him, Loki’s statue trembled as if he too was shocked.

Slowly, Gandr turned to look at Lucivar, who was grinning from ear to ear right now.

"That’s what you’re aiming for from the start, you vexatious avatar."

"I inherited it from the best. After all, like you said, I’m quite clever."

Gandr chuckled at the realization.

He didn’t know what to feel right now—there was annoyance, and there was also pride.

Lucivar thought of the choice to maximize his gain.

Choosing the Fool’s Trick ability—easily the most irrational option among all his abilities, the one that has the highest chance of not being granted, second only to the Triune Scarab, which belonged solely to Sutekh—offered him a rare opportunity to extract more from a deal that didn’t come around often.

Had his request been granted, then he would be perfectly content with that ability being mastered.

But if it was denied, he could extract more by highlighting Loki’s inconsistency.

One that made him look bad for denying the request.

Now, he’d be perfectly content with the Greedy Grasp being mastered, and also gaining the information he wanted the most. As the Gods and the Divine Beasts realized yesterday, Lucivar had already grown accustomed to evil.

It came to him naturally now.

Every time there’s a gap, he’ll maximize it to the fullest extent, no matter what he needs to do.

"Father is amused."

"I specifically did it to amuse him."

"Huh, you lie as easily as you breathe now. Alas, Father granted your wish."

Swish!

Out of nowhere, an emerald gale emerged from Loki’s statue and shot towards Lucivar.

It struck his forehead, and almost instantly, Lucivar’s eyes flared with a brilliant green glow.

Lucivar felt his mind going blank for a moment, and when his consciousness returned, he didn’t feel anything had changed about him. But he knew that his mastery over Greedy Grasp had reached the absolute limit.

Curious, he pointed his hand to the floor.

Just with his will alone, the Greedy Grasp ability was activated.

It melted the block of stone on the ground, turning it into a tenth of a God strand.

"Wait—are you serious?" Lucivar gasped, eyes widening with disbelief. "You’re telling me I can extract God strands from anything? Anything at all? Not just from someone else’s ether, but even from weird things, inanimate objects—like a damn block of stone?!"

"Everything is created by something," Gandr stated nonchalantly. "And your Greedy Grasp—can turn that something into God strands."

Lucivar blinked and looked down at his hands in disbelief.

He basically has endless God strands.

No need for him to constantly replenish his God strands before going into battle, he could now restore them mid-combat, since even the rate of absorption was absurdly fast. Converting a block of stone into God strands took less than a second, and he could handle multiple blocks at the same time.

At this point, his only drawback was his maximum God strands.

Currently, with the amount of Loki’s Divine Blood running through his veins, Lucivar can sustain about fifty God strands at once. He hadn’t tried using all of them at once—but his body could store that much, and that’s already incredible.

A punch infused with twenty God strands would be able to shatter a house or even something bigger.

Imagine fifty God strands at the same time.

And imagine making multiple punches with the exact same strength at an enemy.

Better yet, what if the Night Piercer ability was infused with the same amount?

Luciviar could drown a Chrysalis-rank Hybrid with bullets that have the power to kill them each.

He’d be unstoppable

"Now you’re talking..." He grinned savagely, already eager to meet with his poor opponents who don’t know what’s coming for them. Then, he fixed on Gandr once again, "And? What about the answer to my question? How do I reach the third Divine Elevation?"

Gandr looked at him meaningfully.

His slitted eyes gleamed with the answer Lucivar was looking for.

"If you can’t do something no matter how hard you try, then most likely, there’s something wrong with you," Gandr said, his gaze shifting to the side, to something. "Something inside you is holding you back from ascending, keeping you stagnant. Fix that, and there’s no telling how strong you can be. Nothing will stop you from becoming the Dark Seraph."

Lucivar leaned his head back a little, trying to read through Gandr.

Then, he turned to his right, at the center of the Inner Chamber.

Naturally, his gaze settled on the egg-shaped statue—his Supernatural Ego—now sprouting both a third and fourth wing simultaneously. But he wasn’t truly looking at the statue in particular. Instead, his eyes pierced through it, focused on the power stirring within.

At that realization, Lucivar smiled a little.

"I should’ve known..."

He let out a dry chuckle, turned his body, and approached the egg statue with steady steps.

"I should have known you wouldn’t give up that easily," Lucivar said, staring at the statue as if he was addressing a living soul. "Of course not. You... You still believe I’ll return to who I used to be, that your sacrifice still means something to me, that maybe one day, I’ll look at you and change for the better."

Lucivar stopped before the egg statue, placing a hand on it with a nasty smile.

One that was clearly mocking the entity inside this egg statue.

"Stop with your delusion, Seraphiel," He smirked, pitying the Archangel that was still trying to hold on, the last person who still didn’t realize that she had already lost. "Nothing will come out of this. I will never go back."

As he said that, Lucivar looked down at the ground.

"Deep down I know... This started from you, and it will also end with you." He sighed deeply as if the thought of dealing with Seraphiel already exhausted him. "Maybe I can’t do it now, but soon, very soon... I’ll devour you, Seraphiel. And my ascension will be complete then."

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