Abyssal Awakening

Not only that but because the tree was \'her\', there\'s an inherent risk that the tree would steal her power.

It had already happened earlier with the barrier and with each passing second, she was getting stronger through siphoning the abilities around her.

\'I won\'t be surprised if she steals my blood abilities next.\' Alice thought to herself, stepping to the side and dodging a thorn strike.

Just as she dodged, the thorns cracked open to reveal several seeds that shot towards Alice.

Widening her eyes, Alice controlled the Shard to appear in front of her.

Expanding the shield, she watched as the seeds grew roots and dug into the barrier before sprouting spider lilies.

\'She\'s adapting already!\'

Recalling the shield, Alice twisted her body and created an orb of fire in her hands. Swiping up, a wave of flames rushed towards the beast as she took this moment to channel her energy into the orb.

A Personal Artifact.

A weapon that is perfectly matched with her abilities allowing her to bring out more than 100% of her potential.

In order to reach a level of power that\'s capable of killing this beast in one go, Alice had to choose her Sigils carefully.

Her first Sigil was stuck as the Mirror Jester. An unfortunate situation but she couldn\'t do anything about it.

Her second can\'t be changed right now, not that she wanted to. It\'s the Sigil that makes up the foundations of her power. Taking it out would cause her to lose access to all of her main attacks.

Therefore, under no circumstances can she change out her second.

Her third can\'t be changed either. The blood and metal manifestation was far too beneficial as it stopped her from using her own blood as a resource.

Had it not been for this, each time she fights, Alice would become anaemic even if she cycles the blood back into her own body.

Her fourth was a safety net that also doubles as an offensive option. The power to manipulate the Void helped her close the gap of physical power using teleportation. Even with partial Bloodline Release, she couldn\'t fully close the gap between her and someone who\'s been permanently affected by Abyss Blood.

But her tricks and gimmicks helped her bypass this for most of her fights.

With all of this in mind, Alice could only change two Sigils out of her six.

The strongest person that she knows, Allura, was the obvious choice for her fifth Sigil. Out of everyone that Alice could access, Allura was by far the strongest.

But the problem was which Sigil should Alice take?

From her knowledge, Allura\'s first Sigil was Flame Control. Her second was Flame Manipulation which coated her body in fire. Third was being able to further channel her fire and condense it beyond the normal capacity, hence the white flames.

Allura\'s fourth was invisible blades that prevents wounds from being healed. Fifth was a Berserk type Sigil. Sixth, which she chose for her identity as Kale, was Instant Slashes, letting her bypass the \'slow\' travel time of her attacks when fighting Lords. Not only that, but this Sigil could also directly attack the soul for beings such as Immortality and Spirituality.

Alice wasn\'t sure about Allura\'s seventh Sigil. From what she saw, it was a stacking type that Allowed Allura to activate her new skill that was only devised in the Inverted World.

The Seven Days of Execution.

As for her Eighth, the Power of Destruction that used to belong to Shura.

However, this was a gamble as Alice highly doubted the fact that she could access the eighth Sigil purely based on the timing of which she gained access to Allura\'s Sigil.

The moment in time where she \'siphoned\' a small part of Allura\'s soul was during their sparring, far before the fight during the war.

\'There\'s another way for you to… update your information on Allura.\' Alyss spoke up as Alice glanced over in surprise.

\'What do you mean?\'

\'You still have it right? Allura\'s Amulet that she gave you to save your life.\' Alyss reminded.

The Amulet created from Allura\'s condensed flames. A gift from their moment of parting that lost its use since the connection was severed once they entered the Inverted World.

\'Even though it lost Allura\'s essence which connected her to the Amulet, it was still created from her fire.\'

Furrowing her brows, Alice paused as she realised that Alyss was correct.

While Alice was contemplating her options, the beast moved.

Digging her hands into her chest, she tore open her flesh, cracking apart her rids. Housed in the centre of her body was a beating heart wrapped in a veil of thorns.

Resonance!

Alice felt a sense of danger. A feeling of death looming ever closer and closing its frigid claws around her neck.

Blinking her eyes, she realised her surroundings had changed as she was dragged into a special type of Resonance similar to what Selen had done yet not the same. Selen was an ability but Alice could sense the energy of Resonance from the beast\'s body.

A monotone world filled with black and white. The only colour breaking apart this monotony was the deep crimson of red spider lilies that blossomed from the corpses of countless chimeric beasts scattered across the land.

A harrowed landscape of corpses and destruction filled this realm while a blanket of mist rolled in from the edges.

Beyond the horizon of this realm, colossal ruins crafted from the skeletal corpse of a levithan sized beast with countless limbs grafted onto its body.

Blood dripped from the desolate sky with chains descending from the clouds.

Hanging directly above her head, a single eclipsed sun stared down at the battlefield.

[Theres… two sources of Divinity here…] Cayla muttered with a trembling voice.

Alice didn\'t need Cayla to explain as she could feel it too. Powers that she was all too familiar with.

The Divinity of the Abyss and Eclipse!

Biting her lip, Alice clenched her fist. She knew that her birth was far from natural but this was beyond her initial expectations.

A product created by Nyer, the blood of a fallen Goddess and the blessing of Enris. What else was this body of her\'s hiding? Moreover, it was the Eclipse of all things!

The very same cult that ruined the life of Ria!

*Tap…

Snapping her gaze to the right, Alice could see the approaching figure of the beast.

No longer was she bound to the tree, limiting her movements.

Each of her steps caused the ground to splatter with blood and wherever the blood landed, spider lilies bloomed.

Alice wanted to jump back but in her moment of observation of this realm, she hadn\'t noticed the spider lilies taking root across her body!

\'How could I miss this!?\' Gritting her teeth, she slammed her palm against her chest as violet flames flooded her body.

But in this realm, her flames lost their colour.

Seeing the fire surge across her body yet the spider lilies continued to bloom, Alice felt confusion assault her mind.

Why did her flame stop working?

The fire which she relied upon all this time to cancel out the abilities of the Abyss. Why could it not burn away these flowers despite having done so before?

\'Dammit! This is no time to think of this sh*t!\' Alice cursed inwardly as she created blood blades and slashed away at the roots preventing her movement.

Jumping back, she glanced to her hand and saw that her blood retained its colour within this realm.

\'Is \'red\' the only thing that works here?\'

Regardless, Alice made a choice.

Her fifth Sigil will be updated to Allura!

Reaching into her pouch, Alice grabbed the amulet and threw it into her mouth.

Just as she did this, the beast appeared in front of her and grabbed her head.

Raising Alice into the air, it attempted to slam her into the ground but Alice reacted in time.

Adjusting her body, she kicked the beast in the face while firing a bead of blood towards her chest. Upon collision, the bead transformed into a Void Flux which pushed the beast back and failed to deal any meaningful damage.

But Alice didn\'t care since this was just fine for her.

The key was to create some space between them so that she could assign her sixth Sigil.

She wasn\'t sure if eating the Amulet worked but there was no time to properly test. The fastest way was to eat something else and see if she could designate it as her Sigil.

Naturally, there was only one target for this.

Forcing herself to smile, Alice reached into her pouch and threw the item into her mouth.

###

Interrogating a Zenia Scholar, Kaden flinched as he accidently exerted too much strength and crushed the Scholar\'s skull with his hand.

"What the hell are you doing?! He was about to tell us something!" Nalem panicked while Kaden\'s smile twitched furiously.

". . .Sorry." Kaden flicked the brain matter from his hand as he took out a handkerchief.

"Well? What the hell happened?"

"Alice just ate my f*cking feather."

Hearing this, Nalem felt his brain collapse in on itself as he failed to fully comprehend what he just heard.

"What?"

"She. Ate. My. F*cking. Feather." Kaden clarified as Nalem had to raise his hand and massage his eyes.

"She ate your feather?"

"I\'m not repeating myself for a third time."

"Your feather than you gave her to save herself?" Nalem asked.

"Yes." Kaden nodded.

"The feather holding the power belonging to a Lord and Apostle?"

"Yes."

"And she ate it?"

"Yes."

Blinking his eyes, Nalem only had one thought.

\'The f*ck?\'