Chapter 1810 - 1810: No Matter What It Takes

"Here's to hoping those goobers don't up and die on me," said Skullius, smirking.

He knew better, though. He had books with all their information – resolve, goals, ideals, prospects. He knew them more than they knew themselves right now. They wouldn't get flatlined by gravity after surviving an encounter with the masked necromancer.

Skullius was actually looking forward to seeing how this experience in the Tipser Field (with the powers of the Chubby Remnant Son) would amplify what the Troops and Stars had accomplished after Rias pressured them into surpassing their limits back on Aigas.

Yuyui had using her Eye of Moving to allow herself and the other Stars to move beyond sixty times the speed of light, even though their bodies couldn't handle that kind of speed raw. According to the Observed Calamity Scale, particularly the Tach system, which defined speed, the Stars had been moving over halfway through its lowest classification, OC1, which was 100 times the speed of light.

'That's a good start. Tomorrow, when their bodies are done adjusting to the parameters, they should be able to handle that speed comfortably too.'

Grim, Baddan and Savast had also expanded their arsenals, but with less finesse than Yuyui. That needed work, but their new bodies were bound to make their innovations with their powers from now on much easier.

'Grim moreso. If he ever risks using King of Unforgiving Impermanence again, his body should be able to hold out longer.'

But all this was an aside.

Again, Skullius sent a fierce shuttle of Null Life Essence to obliterate a creature that was spawning from the Unruly Gift Tree. This one was a problem indeed. A Null Badub. The last time Skullius saw one was back in Genhuis City. When Caxellac's body was being piloted by the Null Terror Ferex had turned into, it had attacked the city with Null Badubs in tow.

These creatures weren't particularly hard to defeat, but there was a rub: they were born with strength comparable to an Incandescent Stager and quickly grew stronger with each hour they continued to exist. Convenient minions loved by powerful Null Lifeforms.

The Unruly Gift Tree had their genetic material as well, and it would keep spawning them, along with other monsters, as long as Paliothese's body retained strength for it to feed off of.

'Which is why I need to collect as many resources as I can,' thought Skullius. 'I think I've harvested enough Chubby Remnant Sons. The two Chubby Remnant Children I took are for emergencies – last resorts – even though I hope I never have to use them.'

Besides the crying consumable babies and the obsidian ores, there were other valuables of note from the tree. Granted, those that were actually usable weren't too many, but there was a decent amount. The tree prioritized quality over quantity.

There were microscopic crystals that refused to make contact with Skullius' palm, merely floating over his skin when he gently plucked them from a branch. They came in a thin, inflated membrane that popped when you separated it from the tree, releasing the crystals.

Again, Skullius lamented not having the guidance field. It took him the better part of ten minutes to fully understand what the crystals did. Essentially, they were a consumable, a glorified sleeping pill that froze the consumer in a non-hostile manner. Funny enough, they could be fed to not just to living individuals, but to non-living materials too.

Primal ores – what Skullius decided to call another kind of ore he drew from the Unruly Gift Tree – felt like a miniature sun to the touch. Skullius only managed to decipher their primary use before deciding to move on. When met with resistance, they turned anything within a certain range (one determined by their size) into bombs.

The balls of fabric Skullius drew from the tree drew his interest more, however. They grew in massive clumps, tinted orange, green, and black. At first, the Hybrid questioned how they could be living, but then he felt their breath on his skin, cool and comfortable. On closer inspection, it turned out each strand on the balls was a living entity.

'I could make some decent undergarments with this,' thought Skullius.

He thought the same of the few other variants of living fabric he saw until he began sorting the actual fruits that grew from the tree. There were some that looked like blood congealed into shapes and others that didn't look like fruits at all, like the lizard from earlier. Indeed, it was another type of consumable, and it came in varying shapes that resembled small animals.

'Let's see how much more I can collect before the tree dies,' the Hybrid thought before calling Strawlers to continue collecting and destroying the malevolent monsters.

Everything he had collected was neatly stashed inside the Mobile Maverick Library on shelves. He would study more about them later. After all, he already had ideas about how to use some of them for his initiatives.

Speaking of those initiatives…

'I'll have to grant Weaver and Araeyn their Traits when I relieve them from guarding the Living Parlor. It won't be too late for them to grow accustomed to them, I hope,' thought Skullius, and then he turned his attention to Boron's body floating beside Paliothese's side. The difference in their size was ever so jarring.

'Thanks to Paliothese, I can spare Boron's body for another Apostle.'

Indeed, that was a credit he couldn't thank the Prime Worlder enough for.

Killing was prohibited in the Breaking Chasm, at least for visitors. Fiends were an exception to the rule, Skullius assumed, even for guests like him, which was why he'd thought using the Vacuum Fiends as conduits for Apostles could be lucrative, but it wasn't plausible. When the Fiends were killed, their bodies disintegrated, leaving nothing to resurrect. None of the clever ways Skullius had tried to keep the Vacuum Fiend he snagged earlier from collapsing worked.

'But before that…' Skullius turned away from the corpse and took a deep breath.

He mustered his powers, consolidating his physical strength as much as he could and cloaking himself in the essence of Maximum Jaqquezjaqqz, his medium for the aspects of the |Greater Cosmic Law|.

'Those cocky Primeval Deities are well-informed. They froze my Doom Factor, anticipating that I would try to replicate that weave of Conste keeping Somanda's influence at bay. They were right,' thought the Hybrid. He pushed his hands forward, inviting the Seed of the Fruit of World Myths, Exorbitance.

'I'm their willing, unwitting spy, and that's about as much as I know about their intentions. What they want to use me to pry from this place is still unknown. Is it the auction that they are interested in? Is it Thyrgga himself? Who knows? Once I open the space hiding away the Doom Factor, they'll probably be able to see everything… somehow. Whatever. I'll worry about that later. In five days, I have to be able to bind the Doom Factor on my own.'

It was a huge undertaking indeed. Even reaching the Doom Factor to touch it was an endeavor that required a good base in the Observed Calamity Scale – in Sthen.

But Skullius was determined. No matter how long it took – all night, all five days – he would learn, even if the ABBON-RIGGIE, SVEERCUSK and DRADPAS were counting on it.