Apophis woke up sweating, wondering if everything he'd just experienced had been a simple nightmare.
But he barely had time to catch his breath before receiving a notification.
System: Congratulations on completing No_Value-rank quest "Survive!"
Final grade: S+
Reward: Chest (Artifact)
An artifact chest?!
Chests, unlike most item drops, contained particularly old items–ones which made even the lost Zetark look young by comparison.
Chests locked their contents in a temporal bubble, providing the contents special protection across millions of years.
And in this particular chest was an item of "Artifact" rarity.
That was more than simply the most valuable item rarity. Only one artifact had been known to exist in Apophis's former life, "The Creator's Armor" found by the "7 Gods" player Lucifer in an Ironman dungeon.
Apophis didn't like this kind of quest reward at all. He could very well receive an item that was unusable by his class. He much preferred to receive quest rewards which he knew in advance would be useful to him.
Apophis didn't open the chest right away. First, he wanted to let Antanria know he was in the hotel suite again.
Before leaving previously, Apophis had warned her that he'd be resting for a couple of days. Despite him being gone, Apophis had asked Antanria to stay at the hotel and learn as much information as she could from the books Apophis had found in the Zetark lab and command station.
Now Apophis got up and went to check on Antanria.
He found her asleep in the luxurious living room of the suite, her head resting on a pile of books.
She was really cute!
Apophis found a blanket and pulled it over her, so that she wouldn't catch a cold. Considering the experience he'd just had, it was so strange to see her in good health now.
Now it was time for Apophis to open the chest. He left the hotel and made his way towards the exit gate of the city of Omeya.
It was dawn. The birds were singing and the morning mist refreshed him. Apophis left the city, heading into the nearby wilderness.
Once he was alone in a small wood, Apophis took out the chest and set it in front of him on a boulder.
System: Would you like to open this chest?
Apophis confirmed.
An explosion of black aura whipped around his body and burst into the sky!
The force was so spectacular that the surrounding trees bowed down before the shock wave! This aura was, of course, very similar to the one the God-Emperor had wielded.
The power surge lasted for a good ten seconds, then started to fade.
A crater three meters in diameter had appeared around the chest.
In the center hovered a small ball of pure blackness.
Apophis was suspicious. Feeling this incredible aura for the second time didn't exactly fill him with confidence.
But the beam would have surely attracted the attention of all nearby players, so Apophis summoned his courage and approached the strange object.
The object didn't seem hostile…
Until a monstrous eye appeared in its dark center! It was absolutely disgusting and confusing, a bulbous eye that swiveled its gaze all around, but didn't seem hostile.
Apophis inspected this "thing's" system information.
[Ame Encablossa] [Soul] [Dark] [lvl: ???] [rank: ???]
System: Do you want to attempt to merge with this soul? Please note that you can only ever attempt to merge with a single soul.
"Souls" were extremely rare, usually found as loot during Nightmare difficulty raids—battles which always involved more than a hundred thousand players at once.
Souls allowed for dramatic influence over character evolution and usually granted additional branches to a character's skill tree, as well as a huge boost in stats.
But the most peculiar aspect of souls was that they acted as a permanent advisor for their player, a literal voice in their head that always urged them towards certain actions.
Beyond the fact that some people might consider this annoying, the risk of attempting to merge with a soul was that the process had a chance to fail.
As the system had said, you could only ever attempt to merge with a single soul. If you failed the first try, you were permanently out of luck. Soul merging's success rate was based on mental compatibility between the host and the soul, so it was vital to make an accurate choice of your merging attempt.
Despite all this, Apophis did not hesitate. After all, destiny had granted him this opportunity. He would be a fool and a coward not to seize it!
"I accept," he said.
The black orb sank into Apophis's torso.
System: Fusion in progress. Please wait.
He held his breath.
System: Congratulations! Fusion successful!
A voice resounded in Apophis's head.
"Thank you, my lord, for freeing me! I swear eternal loyalty to you and will do everything in my power to ensure you achieve absolute power!"
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