Chapter 40
Anarias was born in the Kingdom of Myrath, one of Aurelia's seven kingdoms at the time.
By then, slavery had been abolished in Aurelia for over a thousand years—but certain nobles, Awakened, and men of wealth still kept slaves in secret.
That was how Anarias's parents disappeared.
Fortunately, the Church raised him, and the girl next door—his childhood sweetheart—brought light into his life.
At forty-three, Anarias looked back and saw the truth: as a High Cleric, he remained a speck of dust in that era. The girl he had loved since childhood had aged as well, her youthful beauty softened by the years.
He decided to transfer from the Hall of Radiance to the Hall of Cardinals, then marry the woman he loved.
If nothing had gone wrong, that would have been the beginning of a peaceful life.
So, naturally, something went wrong.
Anarias's fiancée was abducted by slavers.
After running down every lead, the Church could only narrow the suspects to a handful of noble houses.
Anarias fell into darkness.
He took up both death and dark magic, then began slaughtering the suspect nobles one by one. In the end, he rescued his fiancée—tortured until she scarcely resembled a human being.
Had no further tragedy struck, Anarias and his fiancée might have lived out their days in seclusion.
Then came the great betrayal of the Seven Kingdoms, in Light Calendar 1164.
When Anarias next appeared, the woman he loved was no longer at his side. Instead, he stood alone as an Archmage of death, darkness, and Fate, butchering nobles with terrifying madness.
Anarias had reached light-attribute High Cleric only at forty-three, but his gift for death, darkness, and Fate magic was extraordinary.
In Light Calendar 1193, he advanced to Prime Legendary.
By then, a Sixth-tier devil had emerged among the hellspawn pouring through the planes.
Between his homeland and hell, Anarias chose Aurelia.
He joined forces with the Church, slew the Sixth-tier hellspawn, and vanished.
Ever since, with each new Convergence of Planes, the lich Anarias revived.
His killings, it was said, served two ends: revenge, and the resurrection of his wife.
People never tired of gossip about the powerful.
Over breakfast, Elise and the others argued about the Death Sovereign's deeds.
In the end, everyone kept to their own opinion.
"Lord Anarias is the Church of Light's executioner," Lia insisted from inside the room. "The Church has never seriously tried to wipe him out."
"The Church purifies Anarias every time he revives," Lorna countered.
Lina, for her part, defended the Death Sovereign's legacy. "The commoners of Aurelia should thank Lord Anarias. He's the one who forced the nobles to abandon slavery for good."
"Serfs still exist," Elise added, unable to stop herself as she remembered her own first days after transmigrating.
The other three turned to her at once, clearly waiting for her verdict on the opponent they might soon face.
Elise thought it over, then laid out her analysis.
"Anarias practices vigilante justice. Worse, his brand of justice is excessive. If he judges someone guilty, they die. The Church can't openly endorse that."
Her view of this lich—who might already have stepped into the Sacred tier—was fairly neutral.
Perhaps he made a point of targeting only the guilty, but plenty of innocents had died as collateral damage too.
Anarias had simply chosen the Church over the other powers. Because his intended targets were always the guilty, and because he had genuinely served Aurelia, the Church had never gone all-out to destroy him.
That didn't mean he could do as he pleased.
The Church of Light had never lacked Sacred-tier powerhouses. They had always watched him, forever weighing the cost of destroying him utterly against the cost of letting him be.
Now Anarias had revived again—and the coming Convergence of Planes would run an unprecedented four hundred years.
If the Death Sovereign dared strike at the Church of Light, the Church would eliminate him first as a destabilizing factor.
Which was why, since his reappearance, Anarias hadn't touched a single cleric of the Church of Light.
Most people took that as proof of his principles.
Elise took it as proof he was smart.
And perhaps, deep down, the Death Sovereign still remembered his old ties to the Church.
Lia seemed to have arrived at a similar conclusion.
She was eating bread, cheeks stuffed, when she abruptly stopped chewing. Her eyes slid sideways. "Elise, if we run into the Death Sovereign, you have to protect me."
"Dear Lia, do you consider yourself guilty?" Elise asked with a faint smile.
Lia shook her head at once. "You're the Church's supreme prodigy. The Death Sovereign belongs to the Church. He won't hurt you."
"That remains to be seen," Elise said softly.
Then she opened her system interface.
---
[Status]
[Name: Elise]
[Spirit: 13.04] (Second-tier)
[Mana: 48.84] (Second-tier)
[Constitution: 1.85] (Second-tier)
Skills:
[Meditation] (LV3: 5,419/10,000)
[Potioncraft] (LV4: 11,695/100,000)
[Runecraft] (LV4: 1,913/100,000)
[Appraisal] (LV3: 8,514/10,000)
[Holy Light] (LV4: 97,164/100,000)
[Holy Light Arrow] (LV4: 93,847/100,000)
---
These days, Elise meditated three times daily.
Each day, her three main stats climbed by roughly 0.2 spirit, about 1.15 mana, and 0.05 constitution.
Once she learned a Breathing Technique—then used [Appraisal] to identify potion materials suited to her body and brew her own constitution potions—her constitution growth would surge.
And as constitution rose, spirit growth would accelerate again in turn.
[Meditation] was in its own rapid-growth phase. As its effects kept improving, her spirit and mana gains would speed up with them.
Beyond that...
Her skills were leveling fast.
Setting aside [Holy Light] and [Holy Light Arrow], both on the verge of Level 5, even [Runecraft] hitting Level 4 had delivered a major surprise.
[Runecraft: Knowledge of energy operation within the spiritual plane.]
[LV4 Effect: Increased learning speed. Increased skill comprehension. Perception of magical patterns.]
Studying the new modifier in her skill list, Elise privately felt she might not necessarily lose to the newly revived lich Anarias.
At this stage, he was certainly Second-tier—and almost certainly not Prime Second-tier.
[Runecraft]'s Level 4 modifier had added [Perception of Magical Patterns], an enormous aid to her casting. All told, it had lifted her spellcasting ability by roughly ten percent.
Which meant that at full power, Elise's spell strength approached 450 Second-tier points.
Converted to First-tier: 4,500 points of spell strength.
A light-attribute spell carrying the divine-power concentration normally seen only in a Senior High Cleric, at 450 Second-tier points of strength, would be more than enough to give a Second-tier Death Sovereign a splitting headache.
And on top of that...
Elise still held two Third-tier spell scrolls the Church had issued her for self-defense.
She refused to believe the current Anarias would dare take spells of that caliber head-on.
Most important of all, her strength was about to climb again.
If the Level 4 skill modifier was already this powerful—
What would happen when [Holy Light] and [Holy Light Arrow] reached Level 5?
By then, perhaps a single [Holy Light Arrow] could destroy one of the Death Sovereign's lich bodies outright.
So Elise did not fear meeting Anarias.
Nor did she think she'd need to back down if they did.
But the most pressing task right now was the morning prayer rite.
[Holy Light] would reach Level 5 today.
With that thought, she finished breakfast quickly and headed to Crimsonwood Church with Lorna.
After completing the preaching portion of the rite, Elise cast [Holy Light].
[Holy Light Skill Experience +4,750.]
[Congratulations. Your Holy Light level has increased to LV5.]
Two system prompts appeared.
Elise had finally earned her first Level 5 skill.
She opened her skill list at once to check the new modifier.
This would ripple into the modifiers of her other spell skills as well—so she was nervous and excited in equal measure.