Chapter 383: Reversal Azel’s eyes gradually opened. For a moment, everything was dark. Then, slowly, he inhaled... his lungs expanded and his chest rose. Air filled him again. "Damn... it feels strange to breathe again," Azel muttered with a hoarse voice, he could guess that was what happened when you had been dead for a while. He sat up slowly in what looked like a dark stone cell. The walls were cracked and the floor beneath him was cold. But inside his body, something warm began forming... multiple somethings. His cores reformed, his aura circuits knitted back together and his soul felt whole again. But most importantly... something new glowed inside him. Divinity. "It was small before..." he whispered, feeling it circulate through him, "but now it’s overflowing." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮 His hand moved down instinctively and he froze. "...Damn. I’m naked." He sighed, then touched his chest. The spot where a hole had been stabbed clean through his heart and also the place where Nari had reached inside him and ripped it out. But the wound was gone and his new heart beat perfectly. "Good. It’s all healed," he muttered. "At least I understand it now." In the end, he’d been forced to give in to the Goddess of Life’s demands. Elarielle was an ancient goddess just as old as Nyala. How an immortal being several million years old became interested in him, he had no clue. He was alive because of her, well he was sure Nyala could have still defied the laws and brought him back anyway. "...Doesn’t this practically mean I’m immortal and can be brought back anytime?" Azel wondered aloud. He tried tuning into the divine connection only to immediately regret it. His goddesses weren’t talking... They were arguing. [MILLIONS OF YEARS OF LIFE AND THE FIRST GUY YOU CHOOSE IS MY MAN?! HOW THIRSTY CAN YOU BE?!] [IMAGINE LIVING AS LONG AS I HAVE AND ONLY NOW GETTING A MAN. PATHETIC.] [Why don’t we settle this with tea and calm—] [NO!!!] Azel slapped a hand to his forehead. ’Damn... talk about issues,’ he thought and tuned them out before his skull exploded. ’So... I wonder what my Divine Aspect is?’ Elarielle had told him that Divine Apprentices who reached the Diviner rank received a Divine Aspect... a holy ability that defined their divine identity. Aspects varied wildly. Some got control over storms, some over metals, some over emotions. Many were average and a few were powerful. But it took a lot of time to reach Diviner or Divine Master rank, like several hundred years. Divine energy wasn’t exactly sold in stores after all. But Elarielle had so much that giving him a chunk wasn’t a problem. Now... he wanted to see his reward. He stood slowly, stretching out his arms. His bones cracked pleasantly. Then... [Ding...] [Congratulations on reaching "Diviner"] [You have unlocked a Divine Aspect: Reversal] ’Reversal, huh?’ he thought. It sounded... underwhelming. He was expecting something like Destruction or Judgment. Something that was a bit loud and flashy... ’Well. Let’s see it.’ A tab opened in front of him: [ Description ] [Reversal allows the user to return a single chosen target to a previous state it once possessed. It does NOT reverse global time. It only rewinds the state of one target.] [ Valid Targets ] [Physical bodies] [Wounds and injuries] [Mana flow and spell formation] [Emotional or mental state] [Soul purity] [Object condition] [ Core Rules ] [Only one target can be reversed at a time] [The state must have actually existed] [The user must have seen, sensed, or understood the previous state] [Cannot create a state that never existed] [ Time Window ] [Current Reversible Range: 0–15 seconds] Azel’s jaw slowly dropped. ’What the actual fuck?’ he thought. ’This is actually overpowered...’ Better than overpowered. He summoned a bone sword from his storage ring... surprisingly still attached to his hand despite Nari literally killing him. Then he did something incredibly stupid. He stabbed himself... Right in the chest. Pain exploded inside him and blood streamed down his torso. His lips parted as he gasped, then coughed up red. He yanked the bone sword out. "I’m just testing it," he wheezed. Then he focused. And he willed it to reverse. The pain... reversed instantly. In an instant, his chest rewound to perfect condition, sealing like it had never happened. "So..." Azel muttered, eyes narrowing. "As long as I can reverse my body to how it was seconds ago... I can be immortal." [Reversal can currently be performed 20 times with your divine energy reserves] He gritted his teeth. ’Always trying to nerf me. At least be happy I’m alive to finish your damn calamities.’ He shook his head and was about to summon clothes when suddenly the divine argument stopped. [WHOA... That’s quite a big member you have down there.] [IT WON’T EVEN FIT IN YOU!] [I am glad you are safe, Esteemed Husband...] Kyone’s exhausted tone told Azel everything. Nyala and Elarielle had pushed even the battle goddess past her limit. How annoying could a duo be that they would exhaust the battle junkie herself? He put on a full set of clothes, gripping the blood-slick bone sword. "Let’s get out of here." He stepped past the open gate and into a dim stone dungeon. A staircase led upward to where he had died before and another path led deeper. Azel paused. "...I’ll deal with this later." He chose the other path. ... "Fuck you!" Sybil’s scream tore through the sky as she punched a flying bat-shaped curse. Her fist slammed into its skull, sending the creature tumbling. Before it could recover, she grabbed its wings and ripped it in half like tearing paper. Sylvia, nearby, dodged a gorilla-like curse swinging its arm. She retaliated with a magic-coated backhand, crushing its head into the ground with a burst of sparks. Silas moved like a shadow with every step releasing waves of lethal sound. Curses were dropping left and right. "You look awfully happy for someone whose man died," Sylvia called over. "Anything you’re not telling us?" Sybil ignored her. Behind them, Flare was fighting as usual... ’I still have two of those potions left,’ Flare thought. She wanted to know how it felt to have above-average mana again. But she didn’t want to waste her blessings. Behind the fighting line stood a half-destroyed shop. All its windows shattered, the sign was broken as well, but its structure mostly intact. Injured people huddled inside while Rain healed them, holy energy glowing around her hands. Torrent teleported each healed person directly into the Academy for safety. They worked like a practiced unit, even though today was their first time cooperating. Four hours in, and they had saved over thirty lives. ’I’m glad we’re saving so many...’ Sybil thought, rolling her neck as curse blood dripped off her stained clothes. ’Would Azel still like me if he saw me like this?’ She almost asked Rain for a cleansing spell, but then a piercing screech echoed from deeper inside the ruined district. "I’ll check it out," Sybil said immediately. She shot into the air and flew toward the sound. She landed on a shattered rooftop and froze. A young man in an Academy uniform... the same one who had run away earlier was gripping a horribly injured woman by the throat. Both her legs were missing and there was blood pooling beneath her. "You..." Sybil whispered in disbelief. "You ran away... what the fuck are you doing?" The young man turned his head. His eyes were glowing purple and black veins were all over his forehead as well as a pair of horns. "I... am a curse," he growled. Before Sybil could move, he crushed the woman’s neck and waved her corpse like a trophy. "I’ll take revenge on the Academy for letting my sis—" A single blast of wind carved through the air. His sentence cut off. His body split cleanly in two with both halves falling to the ground. Sybil exhaled slowly. "I really hate nobles who think the world revolves around them..."