Chapter 12 #3
Any ability based on the strength of your seed or blessing is improved by 25%.
True Punishment
Active Ability
Prerequisite: Rope Burn, Abyssal Permission
Convert pleasure the target is feeling to pain.
Bequeath
Active Ability
Prerequisite: 200+ Followers
Spend 1,000 good-aligned levels to bestow the viceroy class on a willing target.
As always, I wished I could select all three simply because I was greedy, but Bequeath caught my eye immediately. That was the ability Aurketzu must have used to grant me viceroy when my soul was on its way to the underworld.
Would I benefit from giving out viceroy classes?
Aurketzu did everything she could to keep me from discovering the sovereign class because she feared I would turn against her.
Given how the system actively encouraged sovereign conflicts, I had to admit that her fear was justified.
She might have been able to handle it in a way that didn’t get her soul locked in a soulstone, but I was hesitant to find out if I could succeed where she failed.
Selecting Bequeath could wait, I decided.
Abyssal Seed was interesting, but I already intended to buff Intoxicate+57 even more. Speaking of which, I might as well do that now, I thought. I dipped into my unspent stat point allocations and dumped them into Intoxicate, giving me:
Intoxicate+100
Passive Ability
Your blessing is so satisfying that it becomes addictive, like a drug. Strength of addictive properties increased by an additional 100%.
Hopefully, that would be enough for Podni’s Intoxicate bombs to play their part in my plan. For now, it was enough to take Abyssal Seed off the table as an unlock option.
True Punishment could be the cruelest ability I had ever been offered.
I thought about the Borja Bukkake and how the Spirit of Death had to go into hiding from cumming so hard.
What if I had turned all of that pleasure into pain?
That would be as mentally devastating, if not more so, than a bunch of buffed climaxes stacked on top of one another.
In theory, I could use my Restraint ability to throttle how intense that effect was, but still.
With Sanctuary South’s grand opening on the horizon, maybe I should consider something more befitting of a king, so I scanned my pool of unlocks for an ability that might be more useful.
I found a good candidate:
Abyssal Gaze
Passive Ability
Anyone who looks upon you feels a sense of enraptured awe at your presence, as though you could fill the emptiness in their lives.
I put 30 points into wisdom, 30 into charisma, and then 50 into intelligence, leaving me with 32 unallocated stat points. I decided to save those for now and reviewed my character sheet:
Level: 31
Progress to Next Level: (6,378,083 / 6,553,600)
Class: Abyssal Sovereign, Tier 15 (726 / 3,276,800)
Second Class: Fighter, Tier 10
Third Class: Antipaladin, Tier 8
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Strength 101
Dexterity 85
Constitution 92
Intelligence 96
Wisdom 40
Charisma 40
Loyalty Pledges: 401
Oaths of Devotion: 20
Followers of the Silk: 273
Progress to Your Fall: 65 / 100 (Abaddon, King of the Abyss)
Active Abilities: Sense Weakness+1, Abyssal Reward for the Loyal, Safe Word+25, Rope Burn+25, Ghostly Feint+4, Unholy Smite+10, Darkness+14, Wraith+5, Abyssal Permission, Blood Feast+10, Corpse Builder, Shadows of Death+1
Passive Abilities: Bend, Finesse+8, Improved Footing, Improved Accuracy+3, Enemy Study+1, Sense Danger, Unrelenting, Sugar Daddy, Pact of the Ice Fiend, Afterglow, Sharpen+27, Enthrall, Oath of the Silk Noose, Tactician, Silkmancer+20, Devotion Reaper+20, Intoxicate+100, On Behalf of the Viceroy, Dark Champion+2, King of Kings, Path of the Emperor, Restraint, Abyssal Gaze
Shared Abilities: Greater Touch of Ice, Touch of Abyssal Undeath
Equipment: Ring of Strength +1, Bonfire Amulet, Immunity to Poison Amulet, Ring of Legendary Obscurify, Ring of Mind Fortress, Ring of Magic Resistance, Necklace of Resistance to Holy, Bracelet of Nightsight.
No human would be able to touch me now, not with stats like those.
At the same time, I needed to remind myself that Abaddon could have system perks very similar to mine, and he was several thousand years of leveling ahead of me.
Furthermore, a single angeli had just given me enough of a challenge that I fled the battle entirely.
“Good. You should remember that you are weak.”
Thinking about strength in mortal human terms no longer served me. I needed to think like someone who desired to conquer whole planes. My next antipaladin level-up was just a few XP away, so I would need this mentality again soon.
“Nothing you do can save you from annihilation.”
“Can we play with my bonus pledge now?” Invia asked.
I stood, picking Podni up off my lap and setting her on the ground as I did. “No,” I answered. “Maybe later if you’re good. We have a tower climb ahead of us today, so let’s focus on that.”
Invia pouted but didn’t outright complain.
“Good girl,” I whispered to her, just to watch her shiver.