Whispers of A Dead Empire

Chapter 67

A wave of weakness crashed into my body, and I fell to my knees. It wasn't nearly as strong as when I used my soul shout, but it was still pretty powerful. I glanced at my resource bar and saw that it had dipped a little lower than half. I really needed to practice getting this stuff leveled up. At least I have levels now that I can offset my resource costs. I stood up and brushed down my cloak, and brushed back my hair. It was time to get to work on leveling everything while I had the chance before the next batch of adventures got here. I cracked my fingers and mentally prepared myself for what was to come. Gotta get that grind on.

I stumbled into my office, my mind weary and my muscles sore. I pushed myself to my absolute limit, trying to get these skills to a good place. They all increased in one rank overall, which wasn't bad, but I wasn't about to mess with my soul bar right now. That would only lead to a massive headache later, and that wasn't something that I was too keen on dealing with. I already felt like shit as it was, and I wasn't going to push past that point.

I threw myself onto my bed and saw that Alessia had returned and was sitting in the corner reading something. "What is that?" I asked, more out of trying to start a conversation than anything else.

"A book." She replied as she flipped through to another page.

I narrowed my eyes at her and threw a pillow. "No shit. What book is it?"

The pillow went right through her, and she tore her gaze from it and towards me. A flicker of amusement danced through her eyes as she regarded me. "It's a novel one of the adventurers gave me before they left. It's a romance book. The name is twenty shades of black."

I froze when I heard the name, utterly aware of what that book was, even if I hadn't read it. Or at least, I could infer what it was. "Oh, I see; well, have fun with that." I shrugged as I climbed into my bed. I didn't mind her reading that; besides, it's not like I'm her mother, but it makes me feel weird knowing she's reading that kind of stuff.

My head hit the pillow, and I pondered some other things. The first adventurers that came here were unique, to say the least. They seemed ill-equipped to be here and struggled a bit, but I think I would let them bash themselves against my undead for a while longer before I decided to change around the legion. Whatever gave me essence, really.

As that thought crossed my mind, it dawned on me that I hadn't checked my pool or the traits that I have. I've been a little busy with everything. I made a quick gesture, opened up my menu, and looked through everything. Each of those four assassins yields four thousand essence per, which gave me almost sixteen thousand. Total, I had twenty-one thousand and then some change. So I needed four more thousand to hit my cap. From there, I had no idea what to do, so I would get with Kharon on the matter. I dismissed it and glanced at my domain traits.

Unified Faith: The undead within your domain serve you wholeheartedly. Each action you take affects them and defines who they are. You are the beacon that guides them through the uncertainty of their lives. Because of the psychic connection that the undead share, their memories are changed free of cost. Ideas can be implemented and created without an issue.

Whispers of a dead empire: With such potent faith, the undead warp the domain with their thoughts. Whispers of what once was, and what will be now permeate the air. Be wary for this effect can lay low even the strongest of wills.

Corrupted Past: Due to the nature of the domain, the entities here have a false idea of what they once were. Therefore, they can achieve concepts with no prior knowledge.

I bobbed my head as I read them over. Not a bad collection of traits. Everything looked pretty simple and straightforward. The only thing that I needed to do now kept molding my undead to what I wanted them to be. I still felt a little bad at the fact that I was slowly grinding away their memories, but the more I thought about it, the less bothered I was. It was just something that had to be done. I dismissed my screen and stared up at my ceiling. This wasn't so bad. All I had to do was get over some reservations I had. Now it was just a matter of achieving my goal here. But the whispers part was interesting. I haven't noticed anything that seemed off. Perhaps that should be a Kharon question. If I remember of course.

As I was working through some ideas, my mind flittered back to Alessia's evolution. It said she had become sentient, so I was curious about what that meant for me. I reopened my menu and looked through everything to see if I could find more information.

Sentient Undead: These undead have been awakened and are entirely aware of who they are. They are powerful, intelligent, and, above all, dangerous foes. However, this comes with a major drawback: Outside of your system companion, sentient undead can not be respawned. Once they are vanquished, they are forever so.

As I read it over, my blood ran cold, and I gazed at Alessia. If she died, I couldn't respawn her. I had to keep her alive, or at least close by. All the others that would perish here, at least I could bring them back. But not Alessia. I frowned, but I didn't voice my concern about it. I had some amount of trust in her to not do something as stupid as to kill herself.