A suffocating feeling was hanging in the air of the Chamber of Council. All of the higher gods found themselves holding their breath as they witnessed the scene before them.

  Morte was in the centre of the pure-white room, and his screams pierced even their very souls. Several hours passed like that before his nearly-lifeless body scattered down onto the ground.

  Every higher god then received a message from the system.

  That was the only message that every god saw, every god except for Ordine. He received a second, more personal, notification.

  What seemed like centuries of silence passed in the massive room. Finally, the one to speak first was the God of Madness, the tiny Gnome wearing a jester's outfit.

  "That was... interesting," he said as he stroked his goatee thoughtfully, all the while, a smirk covered his lips.

  The God of Weakness, a skinny and pitiful looking human, shook his head. "That was incredibly intimidating..."

  The enormous octopus, the God of Wisdom, thrashed his tentacles about with rage. 'Anything is intimidating to you! This was insulting, that's what it was! For the system to dare bare its fangs at us!'

  Forza snorted, making a few tendrils of smoke emerge from his snout. "Saggezza, you do know that the system can hear you, right? Morte was an idiot for tampering so heavily with the test. He got what he deserved."

  The Golden Dragon watched as Morte's smokey body mechanically floated up onto his throne. Even though he still retained 20% of his own will, the God of Death was obviously choosing to abstain from commenting.

  'Of course you'd say that, you traitorous lizard.' Saggezza, the God of Wisdom, was very upset. He couldn't be bothered with this conversation anymore, so he got off his throne and left the Chamber of Council.

  Many of the other higher gods followed after him. Soon, all that was left was Ordine's faction which consisted of the higher gods of Evil, Reality, Strength, Weakness, War, Madness, the Goddess of Life, and lastly, the God of Order.

  "Such a surprising child, that Daz boy," Vita, the Goddess of Life, a beautiful golden-skinned elven woman, said.

  The massive green slime that was the God of Reality sloshed about on his chair. "Is that really important right now? While I never was very fond of Morte, he was still one of us. It is painful to watch a fellow higher god go through such punishment."

  Guerra, the Shura who was the God of War, snorted. "It was his own fault for underestimating the system. It clearly has some interest in the boy, otherwise, it wouldn't have been so enraged. You all know that it hardly ever bothers when we meddle in the tests more so than we should."

  "Still..." Debolezza, the God of Weakness, had a troubled look on his frail face. "I have to ask wh-what's so special about him anyway? The system's never been interested in anything except its tests before..."

  Malvagio, the High Devil who was the God of Evil, laughed. "I find myself asking the very same question." He shot a look at Ordine before asking, "I wonder why the system didn't strip you of your will for your meddling in the child's affairs as well, hmm?"

  Ordine stroked his beard. "I am merely maintaining the balance. Naturally, the system can see that."

  "The balance, is it?" Malvagio had a wicked smile on his red and crooked lips. "I wonder if that little stunt of yours at the start of the trial was also to 'maintain the balance'?"

  Ordine grinned. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Please, elaborate for this old fool."

  "Of course, of course. I'm remembering things wrong, no doubt." Malvagio backed down and simply slouched in his throne with a playful expression on his face.

  Forza huffed loudly before he lumbered up onto his feet. "You stupid bastards and your mind games. Come on, Guerra, let's go fight or something. This place is too stuffy for my liking."

  "Sure," the six-armed Shura happily replied.

  Like that, the rest of the gathered higher gods dispersed, leaving Ordine by himself in the Chamber of Council.

  Stroking his beard, Ordine couldn't help but speak to himself as he watched Daz. "To think that it's only the second cycle, but he already possesses two champions of us higher gods under his wing... Pala truly is a fortunate god, is he not? Hahaha..."

  Daz had decided to return to his keep after he shrugged off everyone that had come out to congratulate him.

  He had already forgotten about Mu destroying Rimmy's main body. Seeing Rimmy's core looking at him with pride from the walls had quelled any rage he still held. Daz's objective now was to go over the racial changes he had experienced upon becoming an Archreaper.

  First, he inspected his two new racial skills.

  'So, basically, I have ten extra lives? That's insane... Per day, no less... Also, what does it mean by 'first' Death God? It's not a set person but a title? Still... 'Bàs', huh? I wonder if that means 'death' in some other language as well...' Of course, through his own study, Daz had learnt that 'Pala' meant shovel and that 'Ordine' meant order, both in Italian.

  He knew that 'Bàs' wasn't Italian for 'death', so his curiosity had been piqued. Daz decided to leave this up to Rose to discover the meaning behind it, that was if there even was one.

  'Interesting... So I guess the theory is that I should absorb all of the medium and higher-ranked souls while letting the lesser ones surround me? I'd rather just upgrade Reika with them, but it's certainly a thought.' Daz could understand why the other nine Archreapers were unwilling to consume the souls that the note in the description was complaining about.

  Now that he had confirmed his new racial skills, Daz checked out the single racial trait that he'd been given for becoming an Archreaper.

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  "Interesting..." Daz mumbled aloud.

  Treating his halo like a bed of some sort, Reika heard Daz talking to himself, so she stopped messing around and asked, 'What is?'

  "Nothing," Daz replied dismissively, making Reika puff out her cheeks and return to acting like she was sleeping.

  Now that Daz had confirmed his new skills and trait, he asked the system to show him his updated existing racial skills and traits. Apparently, becoming an Archreaper had boosted every single one of them.

  Daz clicked his tongue once he saw this skill. It still didn't seem like it would work on Shen Mu, which made it a garbage skill in his eyes. Of course, this skill was incredibly useful, but Daz was currently being a little bit narrow-sighted. He made a mental note to find out exactly how Mu had completely nullified this skill's damage buffs later on.

  This was all a lot to take in. From what Daz could immediately see, some of his useless abilities had become less useless, while his useful ones had become infinitely more useful. All around, it was a major upgrade that he had badly needed since he'd been focusing on Fort Skip and Rimmy far more so than himself of late.

  The last few things that Daz had to check were his status, his resistances, and finally, his new stat limits.

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