Bro, I'm not an Undead!



"Job well done, boss!" Grim said with a sagely nod of approval.

Replicus merely nodded back and dropped the body he had been holding to the deck. He faced ahead and noticed that they were trailing behind the majority of the other ships.

It seemed even Warding Pride hadn't stuck around to found out whether Replicus would live or die. She must have figured she would see him return if he were to survive and perhaps then, she would settle the score she had with him.

Replicus was curious if the barrier master had informed anyone about his appearance yet, if there was anyone who would even take her seriously. No one would think, for instance, that they've had an undead right under their noses this whole time.

When necessary, Replicus had switched to his Hybrid Luman form in the past two months in order to form a convincing narrative against probable suspicions like the one Warding Pride probably had. The disparity in height was something he would explain by saying it was a feature of his armour. Whether anyone found him suspicious or not after that didn't truly matter, since no one could actually prove anything, especially after he became a Faction leader.

While he had been annoyed that Incandescent Stagers' sight was so powerful it could see the souls of his crew despite even the presence of the umbrella-shaped barrier around the ship's deck, he had gotten more confident that the Hollow Dusk's Prison limited the view for them.

The armour was new after all, and previously Replicus had used varying degrees of artefacts to try and block Incandescent Stagers' annoying visual acuity. Given how reserved and crafty most of the Faction leaders were, it was hard to tell whether they saw his odd soul or not. Some could know but be holding it as a trump card against him.

For now, he was more willing to believe that he was in the clear, though while reserving his doubts.

The Mad Bishop would have been a great candidate to ask for help in ascertaining whether he was perfectly hidden or not, but she was also one of the reasons why Replicus hastened the process of finding a good counter against unwanted scrutiny and even compulsion.

Replicus looked to Allora, who, on the now massive ship looked to be faraway.

"Are you still able to maintain the supply of mana?" he asked.

The tall woman proudly puffed up her chest.

"Oh yes! I'm good for another few hours. The armour you made me works like a charm! If I was to use my other abilities, I feel like I could easily fight at my peak for a five hours at least," she said

Her Granted Armament, constructed recently and fitted with a plethora of Endurance boosting additives in the forms of skills and stats, complemented Allora very well. She wasn't just wearing a tough front. She truly felt herself brimming with energy.

"Good. Let's maintain the size too then," Replicus said. Planting his hand on the ground, he made the nine ethereal cannons recede. There was no use in looking as though he wanted to start a fight with anyone the cannons pointed at. Besides, he hadn't removed the skill he had placed upon the ship. On command, he could have the cannons out in a micro-moment.

"Master, will we still be going on the offensive when we catch up to the others? Going through with the rest of the plan, I mean," Pherdanta asked. She had taken back full control of the ship as Baddan was settled on the deck, restoring the massive amount of mana he had used. He too had been granted access to the ship's reserves, after all.

"If the conditions call for it. The further we travel, the worse the conditions are going to turn out. We might be seeing more action soon or not. Still, it's best to keep refilling the ship's Null Life Essence and Mana reserves while we can. And don't forget your own," Replicus said and Pherdanta nodded with understanding.

Speaking of the reserves...

Replicus flashed down to the area under the deck and entered one of the ten large rooms.

Two vast pools, one which seemed empty for anyone but him and Araeyn, and another filled with mana, could be seen.

These pools, when quantified numerically at their full capacity had roughly over 100,000,000 Units of blue quality mana and over 500,000 Units of Null Life Essence.

For now, Replicus didn't have much need for the former since he was enjoying the benefits of [Sage Strain] and [Sage Save] which granted him a pseudo-purple core for mostly Special Skills. This core gave him a tremendous amp to his physical capabilities even if it wouldn't work as desired for Super Skills. This was the main reason Replicus had been confidently facing off against Nedalia in a contest of physical ability. After all, much like the last Incandescent Stager Replicus he killed, she had a blue mana core.

Replicus quickly refilled the reserves by tapping into the storage back in Deign and returned to the deck.

The vessel was practically flying ahead with the immense mana flooding through it right now.

Soon, the other ships crept into view, though it seemed the resistance offered by the waters grew worse and worse, slowing most of the vessels noticeably.

Up ahead, Replicus recognised a vessel he had marked in order to keep track of who it belonged to.

It was the Bishop's ship.

If it was possible, he would have rolled his sockets.

He told Pherdanta to shift course slightly in order to sail in huge arc, avoiding the mad woman entirely.

Naturally, he was making it obvious that he was avoiding her, but it hardly mattered. As long as he postponed their fight.

The Penetrator wasn't sure he would be able to beat the Mad Bishop in the same way he beat Nedalia. In fact, he hardly knew what the Mad Bishop's abilities were. He only knew that her class was related to the Energy Forming category of Priest. Whether it was Advanced or Hidden, was still a mystery to him, but either way, he knew she was a problem.

He was particularly anxious about how his [Nullmancer's Royal Raiment of Acclimation] and [Epiphany] would work against her.

What counted as concepts to [Epiphany] wasn't just anything magical in nature.

As far as he knew, elements counted, and abstract phenomenon also counted, but he doubted that every unclear force in the world could simply be mastered through [Epiphany].

One of his doubts stemmed from the fact that all his Nullmancer exclusive skills, those he acquired via extraction, didn't have a tag revealing their Tier – whether they were Normal, Special, Super or Supreme.

Replicus imagined that they were somehow extraordinary, since he actually had to work hard to get them, unlike [Apostle Summon], [Depths of the core] and the likes, but that didn't make them invincible.

Did them having no tag mean they didn't have a limit? That perhaps he was free to have them evolve endlessly even past Supreme? That seemed possible, given that Serenity had given Replicus hints at a purpose that surpassed merely Aigas, a world.

Still, even if that was true, the skills weren't at that level yet and they were criminally hard to level up. [Epiphany] was a prime example of this. [Nullmancer's Royal Raiment of Acclimation] evolving past its initial Tier was a product of Replicus exposing himself to pure treachery, which he thought would have worked best for the former rather than the latter, but here was, looking at the result.

He theorised that [Epiphany] was harder to level because it acted as the lynch pin for the clean victory he was able to deal after using his three Nullmancer exclusive skills!

'I've done well to hide my trump cards until now. Some are better saved for Eaniss, and that masked man,' Replicus thought.

He then looked to the new trophy he had acquired.

Nedalia's corpse.

After killing her, he unfortunately hadn't been blessed with cumulative mana experience because her soul – which possessed most of the cumulative mana – had been devoured by his lancet.

The cumulative mana experience in her body, much like that contained in the corpse of Replicus' other victims, would be sucked into the soul as it left the body. This was the drawback of using the lancet, but Replicus saw it as a boon.

There were some enemies he just couldn't kill by aiming at their bodies. Though the masked man was a candidate worth considering with his quickly developing lancet, Replicus had been preparing more for Somanda instead.

Since he had transcended the boundary of the norm, Replicus needed contingency after contingency in the 18 days he had left to prepare.

To that, he had thankfully acquired another useful, unique card.

Looking at Nedalia's corpse, he scoffed.

Her Lambent Phosphor truly was something else.

Though...

As crude as her attempt to trap him in a reconstruction of his life's past events had been, did it actually adopt a certain degree of... truth?

Thinking about Yuyui, Replicus couldn't help but think...

'Do I somehow superimpose Camilla onto Yuyui? Does it affect how treat her?'

Back then during the Fire Breeder Cluster...

Did he treat Yuyui as he would have Camilla?

Replicus didn't know the girl personally – right now at least – but more than once, he had acted as though he knew her subconsciously. He had said things, done things unbecoming of the skeletal him.

'Hmmm. If it's true... maybe even now I care much more than I realise...' he thought, not knowing that the original version of himself, had experienced the same debacle a day ago.