Ebony's Fable

Ebony ignored the 2 Nebulians and sat Molstein's dead body on the ground. The rest of the power suits that had moved to protect Molstein suddenly stopped.

"Ambushes…. are really not for me. You could have been a great fight, what a waste." Conjuring the spear and waiting for an opportune time took about 4 seconds. The rest took less than 1.

Molstein's face had warped in the fraction of a second when Resolve's Cadence boosted Ebony's mana regeneration. 'I can't use Resolve Cadence for mana with any friendlies or important structures near me.'

With a stomp, gravity opened a hole under Molstein. But Ebony stopped the burial process, he froze the body, then shattered it into icy dust. Gathering the icy dust into a small vortex, he fed and combined the icy dust inside the plum he was still carrying.

Ebony saw that his wife used Intent and a waste of energy to free herself from the tiny bit of Preservation he used on her. The rest of the power suits went offline because Ebony received 2 notifications. He also killed the armour spirit's soul and it was apparently controlling all the power suits with their creator.

He Flickered to the Nebulian Emperors. "Take this and fly up, outside the atmosphere if you can. Then, we'll let bygones be bygones. You don't bother me, I won't bother you." He slid the plum towards one of their misty silhouettes.

He could see through the mist this time, but not the cloak or the mask. It was not time to be impressed by the items they were covered in.

"---our people."

"Never did anything to me. As long as that stays true,"

"We accept." A voice hammered into his head rather softly but it continued to echo.

'…How many Saints do they really have hiding here?" Ebony was at a loss for words at the voice that answered for these Emperors. He didn't see or sense where it came from, but he was certain it was another Saint.

Vent killed one of their Saints. He also made Cormac go through some sort of reincarnation that even Aunt Tao couldn't track down after going to the Neather Realm because he had already been reincarnated by another Mandate to speed up the process.

Yet there was another?

He seriously can't take a break around these Nebulians. As expected from a race that had a Supercluster-wide bounty from one of the biggest merchant groups around.

With the speaker present…all his plum did was change the colour of the sky, brought night to Elcra along with a heat wave that chilled the mind and soul of every creature. Thankfully, they flew very high up and hardly any mana leaked down to the surface. At most, some weaker folks across the continent might have chilly nightmares or a slight heatstroke. This spell wasn't imbued with the idea of Soul Basillisk's Pseudo Imitation Roar so the essence attack shouldn't contain a Skill for a targeted soul attack.

If Tidal's barriers were working, none of its citizens would even feel anything. They will see the dark sky and that would be it.

The two Nebulian Emperors floated back down. They were recovering from a horrible state. The clear influence of another person's Mandate was left on them.

"Come for me once more, and I'll have more of those waiting for you. If you can't descend and still bother me….I will come up." Ebony made sure the Saint who couldn't descend because of the Nebula Watch could hear him.

"You are funny, God's Child cannot and will not protect you forever,"

"If you ever see Cormac. Tell him that if Misfortune won't miss, we won't either." His translator added on.

"Silly little creatures. Misfortune hasn't even struck yet. Agony hasn't shown its face….Our deal has been completed with that spell of yours. Get out of our village before I make you."

'God's child? Must be referring to Vent….wow, no wonder his status seems so high.' Ebony was not aware that he had been interacting with a legitimate being of divine descent. Then again, so were every single member of the Tetramyth. Their entire race could be considered God's Children because Tetramyth is their Progenitor.

"Oh, I do have something else to say."

"..."

"Thank you. If it wasn't for Entity Evanesce, I would never have been able to develop the Will for one of my skills." Ebony said so with as much sincerity as he could. The development of Sequester wouldn't have been possible without them.

They left without seeing the unknown ugly expressions behind the hidden faces.

The sky continued to burn dark for hours. It went on long enough that the day actually turned to night before the energies dispersed fully.

The Empire's Seers were having a field day.

The Nobles couldn't calm their people down.

The civilians screamed of doomsday.

Contrary to their panic, after their 'doomsday' event, they would see almost no movement from Lure over the next few days and more.

Yet that was unknown and unimportant to Ebony.

He was having his ears pinched and dragged back home. "How dare you sneak attack and freeze me! I called dibs!"

"…"

"Oh, I just got a message from Grandma. Guess what she told me?"

"That she was the one who told me Molstein's location?" He innocently replied. Back up has come.

"Heheh…" She smiled eerily, "Tell me the next time your husband bullies you, Grandma will help you."

"…." No backup.

Only a backstab.

Ebony quickly keyed in a message 'I'll backstab you next time," but he wasn't able to send it out before he received one from Veronica, "Try me, oh and don't bother badmouthing me."

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Damnit. Any sort of backstabbing would've been divined in advance.

"A word of advice ,grandson-in-law and granduncle in status. Hole up for a few decades and evolve quietly. Don't dally. Make a short-term goal of beating Auntie Shi Ling in direct combat for a start."

It was rather unsettling to be called grandson and granduncle in the same sentence. They had no blood relation, but the Xengs referred to each other in the generations they were apart and not their Clans. Every member of the same generation called each other brothers and sisters regardless of their Clans. Though there was still internal rivalry.

It felt like he was being asked to do one of those cultivation seclusions.

"Get some rest, I'll help cook for the next week for your pre-evolution feast….let's hit whatever storage limit your mask has."

"Are you fattening me up?"

"I'll have to try. All you have to do is eat and eat until your Ancestor comes, and even after that, I won't let you stop till you gain weight." Since his wife's mask stored blood, her mass never fluctuated more than half a gram. No matter how much food she ate, she was digesting and charging her mask at the same rate.

Hence, her battle capacity was never affected by her eating habits. She also no longer face extreme weight loss during a fight by her intense energy burning thanks to her mask's blood storage.

The extra battery kept her state consistent.

"You're the best….oh you're not forgiven yet." Her pinch relaxed slightly. He was pretty sure she was turning red under her mask.

The cool down of half a day after the people he killed was spent dressing down, washing up and preparing ingredients.

Ebony made sure to get plenty of cheese, nuts, meats and other high-caloric ingredients.

In his opinion, the Soul Lord or Ecstasy Lord chasing after the empowerment of souls was simply an inferior path to his wife. An unknown number of souls that powered them up?

He couldn't even tell the difference until he popped Molstein.

His wife simply needed calories.

Caloric power > Soul power.

Clearly a superior choice of empowerment. A single Emperor monster probably gave her more calories than the power its soul gave these soul users...

He supposed this caloric power was more temporary and could be used up, while soul empowerment was more permanent?

It was hard to say unless he found out how the Angel's powers worked.

"Hold this carcass tighter," Xin commanded.

Ebony held the neck bone of a weird snake. It had a very thick inner skeletal structure and very thin flesh and skin. More bone than flesh. He steadied himself while his wife put her feet on the table edge and leaned back while pulling. They struggled to rip its flesh from its bones. She'd long drained the snake of its blood right after taking it out of the preservation box it came in with. It was as fresh as if it had been killed moments ago thanks to preservation containers.

After ten minutes, his wife had a flushed face. The couple stared at the snake that needed to be coiled to fit on their countertop. Ebony even made an extra-large countertop because of their eating habits.

It was half ripped free, but Xin was out of breath so they took a pause.

"What species is this? I want to hunt it down someday." Xin asked.

Ebony also didn't expect to have purchased something so tough after it died. The flesh seemed interconnected with its bones.

"Unnamed species, the hunter didn't have high-tier enough Identify. From its structure, it is some highly evolved and mutated version of a rattlesnake."

Then they continued working on it, this snake challenged her knife skills like never before. Even if they fought, she might not be able to skin this thing while it was moving.

"This bone can be used for more nutrient jelly. Do you want it after I'm done boiling and extracting its essence?"

"Hmm. I'll turn it into bone powder for the garden but it might be pointless after you extract all its nutrients and essence." There might hardly be any calcium left over after going through her nutrient jelly making process.

"Then I'll directly powder it for the jelly. Help me crush it."

"Mmm." With their digestive capabilities, their bodies would waste less than if she were to extract and cook it.

He took over the mortal and pestle and brought the skeleton outside for the rough handling. This mortar and pestle absorbed heat so that hard forces don't generate heat to cook the ingredients.

The hour-long job had Ebony breaking the mortar and pestle set and the spare he bought. 'I have to upgrade our cooking ware.'

After a full day of prep work, he forced her to take a seat.

How hard could cooking by following a recipe be for someone with peak control over their body and mind?

It seemed like that didn't matter. The consumer and eagle watching his every move was so stressed out about every little thing he did that she put her sandwich down.

It was too bad, he didn't have her foreign essence control and was wasting the energy in the high-quality ingredients. Making the dishes no different from something a regular chef could cook, even ancient ranked meat would become edible for Unclassed if no essence was left behind and trapped within the dishes.

Vegetables were even harder to handle.

Hence, he was assigned to more ingredient prep and assisting with clearing the place while she sipped on blood packs and cooked.

Ebony received a text through Eidolon that Dusk picked up instead of a mental transmission from the Ning Saintess. Their house privacy settings were just that good, or the Saintess respected that much.

"Drop me a message or call when you're ready."

Dusk did not send a reply. They had a special container for sealing Eidolon's connection for the house, but he wouldn't be able to receive messages that way, so leaving it with Dusk was a good substitute.

Xin's feast kept going.

They found her mask's current limit, which can bring her capacity to 3200%. Once it got to this point, eating made her gain weight again. He could successfully say he could feed his family and not starve his wife. All it took was Emperor-ranked meat and vegetables about 80 times her body mass. A good indicator for now. He didn't even keep that in mind since she was going to evolve soon.

But he kept pushing for her to eat. Till he had a proper plum.

This time, completely contained with only a portion of the gravity cube's mana. So it wouldn't rely on surrounding gravity mana. The Will required to maintain this was also on the lower side because he couldn't justify taking all his Will regeneration to upkeep a bomb for half a year.

This was a little stronger than the one that coloured the sky and his Numbers placed a notice in his mindspace that the Imperials were calling it the Dual Flare Eclipse event. Minds were chilled, and life force was warmed up. It was not a comfortable event for all creatures under Elva's skies.

It was less Will-intensive thanks to Dusk and the gravity cube having all that gravity mana without requiring him to grab every drop from across the planet's surface.

Needless to say, those who are familiar with their mana all knew it was his doing. The Royals didn't give any public explanation yet, but there were rumours it was the 'xengs' doing and that quietened the public as a whole. Because events of such scale were just another day when these people were in question. The younglings had to undergo another period of storytelling from the older generation about who these non-Imperials that shared the same land but weren't under the Empire's rule.

Ebony did not fear doing any lasting damage to the planet as a whole. He'd learn that no matter the damage, the Elves who guarded nature would get the help of Saint Spirits to fix the place. He doubted he could destroy Elva without significant time, like the endless charge he had when he took the Nebula Watch's assessment.

By the time he gathered a lump of mana required to blow this continent, he would probably be surrounded. The only question was how far a Spirit's control and power could leak into this realm.

Regardless, he did not have the intention to blow this place up.