Laia lowered the glowing barrel of her manifested divine rifle, the faint golden hum of its power fading back into her palm. She flexed her fingers, watching the weapon dissolve into raw divine essence. No recoil. No ringing in her ears. Just a clean, silent shot.
She had never understood the obsession with swords, staves, and ornamental axes that permeated every noble house and academy lecture hall. Ranged precision worked just as well, and it was a great deal safer. If more gods bothered to manifest firearms instead of fancy enchanted blades, fewer would end up as rotting, twisted corpses in the Forsaken Wastes.
She stepped over the twitching remains of the Fallen Deity, her boots crunching on void-scoured gravel. The thing had barely been recognizable as a god once—its form warped, its flesh oozing with abyssal corruption, two curved mid-grade divine blades still clamped in its gnarled claws. For a Third Rank fallen god, it had been absurdly confident. It had actually thought its abyssal taint could burn through her wards and seep into her soul, feeding the void straight into her core.
It had not even gotten close enough to swing.
She pried the blades from the corpse's claws and hefted them one at a time. Decent make. Solidly enchanted. Nothing remarkable, but they would fetch a handful of crystals if she fenced them through the right secondhand merchant back in the fringe district. Every coin counted. She strapped them to her belt and knelt, pressing a palm to the dead god's sunken chest.
Beneath the corrupted flesh, something hummed faint and broken: a shard of a god-kingdom. Dormant. Shattered. Tiny compared to a full realm, but intact enough to hold life.
Laia's eyes lit up.
She poured a thin trickle of divine essence into the shard. The air rippled, and a small, flickering projection bloomed above her palm: a scrap of rocky hills and marshland, home to a few scattered, wild clans. Hard-bitten frontier humans. Mountain orcs. Swamp lizardfolk. Rough, unrefined, born of a broken realm that had been adrift in the void for years.
And—she leaned in, checking twice—no special traits. No Soulbane. No Abysstouched. Nothing that would get them disqualified from the tournament.
Perfect.
They were nothing special. Common quality, at best. They would not stand a chance against the noble-born angel legions or drowned revenants her classmates commanded. But they were something. They were legal. And with three days of drilling and a few quick oracle tweaks, they might just be strong enough to scrape her into thirtieth place. One thousand crystals. A hundred days of breathing room. It was enough.
She tucked the shard into her satchel, her mood brightening for the first time all day. Then she glanced down at her wrist bracelet, and her smile faltered.
Personal Traits Updated
Void Resistance
Abyss Resistance
"Are you kidding me," she muttered, prodding the glowing text with a finger.
She had come out here to find subjects without traits. Instead, she had picked up another one herself.
If any of the academy nobles found out she had awakened Abyss Resistance just by wandering the edge of the Wastes for a day, they would scream. It was the kind of trait people spent tens of thousands of crystals trying to force-awaken with rare, dangerous rituals. And here she was, getting it by accident, and all she could think was great, another thing to explain if anyone finds out.
It made sense, she supposed, in a miserable, ironic sort of way. Just as her people had built up Void Resistance from breathing the mist every seven years, she had picked up Abyss Resistance from breathing in the fallen god's corrupted aura. Her body adapted. It always had. The ancient god-fragment buried in her soul just… rolled with whatever the world threw at it, even when she did not notice.
She glanced around, scanning the hazy horizon for any more signs of movement. One fallen god was enough luck for one day. Pushing deeper would be stupid. She had what she came for. She had extra loot. It was time to head back.
Somewhere at the back of her mind, the distant hum of her own kingdom felt faintly off—busier than usual, louder, like a hive that had been kicked over. She could not make out details, not from this deep in the void. Probably just another tide, she told herself. They could handle it. They always did.
She adjusted her satchel, turned back toward the distant, faint glow of the divine border wards, and started walking.
One thousand crystals. Thirtieth place.
She could almost taste it.