Abyssal Awakening

"You just gotta kill Enris, the God of the Eclipse." Alice shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly while Ria's smile twitched.

"You what now?"

"You just gotta kill Enris. If you kill her, the Eclipse should collapse rather quickly since the ones near the top have a pretty unshakable belief in her. There's the Apostle of Famine and War, not sure if they're still alive and kicking but they probably are.

"The Eclipse is a cult built entirely on Enris' whims. What interests her at the moment. She'd even go as far as to cancel all of her previous plans if the situation is chaotic enough." Alice explained as she recalled her experience with Enris.

Their relationship was… strange to say the least. One moment she was interested and another they were tearing at each other's throats.

Truly a strange God.

"No, that's not what I mean. What I want to ask is that you're telling me to kill… A God??? Can they even be killed?" Ria asked while Luke paused mid-step, wondering what the hell did he just walk into.

"The three Gods of the surface aren't invincible ya know? I'm not entirely sure of their functionality but from what I've seen, they can indeed be killed. Or at least brought close to death." Alice glanced down.

She could remember Nyer utilizing a strange method to cause Enris to receive a backlash strong enough to stop her from fighting. And with Velouria's fate as proof, Gods can indeed be killed.

"But it's God you're talking about. Beings above Lords who can kill us with a single sneeze and above Apostles who can kill Lords easily." Luke raised an eyebrow while sitting next to Ria.

"Yea but you've been talking to one this entire time though." Alice rested her chin on her hand as Ria nodded her head before pausing as well.

"Who?" Both of them asked as Alice rolled her eyes and pulled out a feather.

"Kaden. He's an Apostle for… A fallen God that I met in the Inverted World." Alice explained as she began to explain the history of Ayr and Velouria.

She didn't go into too much detail but enough for them to understand the strength of the person who's been training them.

The longer Luke listened, the paler his face became as he just grabbed the collar of an Apostle of all people.

"But yeah, you just gotta get strong enough to kill Enris and the Eclipse cult should collapse in on itself. Without the head, the rest can be dealt with easily even if it is a bit difficult. It'll be much easier and less effort than carving away at it from the countless branches." Alice smiled while focusing her mind on making a couple of blood daggers.

The formation and durability of these weapons were poor but when mixed with some metal to help stabilise its form, it was sufficient.

Now that she no longer had the passive buff of Cayla to help with her control, it just proved how difficult it was to be an effective caster.

Leaning back, Ria dwelled on Alice's words as she began to furrow her brows.

"Arg!!! It's simple when you phrase it like that but how do I even get strong enough to kill a God. I'm not a God after all." Ria scratched her hair.

"I dunno, it's something for us to find out isn't it?" Alice laughed, throwing the daggers into the air and juggling them to the best of her abilities.

Her depth perception was very poor with just one eye and she failed to catch the daggers. But it was a start as she slowly began to adapt to the vision.

*Sigh~

"You're not wrong. Something for us to figure out huh? One's trying to kill a God and the other is trying to topple the biggest noble family working with Abyss Blood on the surface." Ria sighed.

"Don't forget trying to revive Ayr while I'm at it."

"That too. What about you Luke? Do you have any grand goals to work towards?" Ria asked curiously as she sat up, looking towards him with expectant eyes.

"A goal huh? Hmm…" Rubbing his chin, Luke tried to think of one but nothing came to mind.

"I'll probably play it by ear and see what happens."

"Boo~ That's boring. What about your Abyssal Engineering? You're talented at that, do you not have any grand goals for your talents?" Ria did a thumbs down as Luke chopped down on her head with his hand.

"No goals here. Even with the things I make, it's mostly miscellaneous stuff and gimmicks for people fighting in close quarters combat. Honestly, I don't even get the big inventors in the first place. Why should I invent stuff for the whole population to use? It'll be pretty ironic if I die when someone kills me with my own invention." Luke scoffed as he'd rather make stuff for Ria than other people.

"Exactly! You get it don't you!" Alice clapped her hands with a wide grin on her face.

The same went for her, why should her blood be used for the masses? It didn't make sense for her.

Reaching into her pouch, she revealed a devious smile and pulled out some mead and skewers.

'Oh sh*t let me out! I've been starving for those.' Alyss shouted as she wiped away her drool.

'Don't worry I will.' Alice reassured as the party resumed between the three of them.

Ria partied, feeling happy that the confusion in her mind was cleared.

Alice partied, feeling happy that Luke understood what she felt.

Luke was dragged along in confusion.

###

Clutching her head after the party, Alice could feel the dizziness take over and having just one eye didn't make things any better.

There were quite a few things she needed to deal with. The Zenias, The Underground, Academy department transfer and even the Principal. She wanted to ask her about her relationship with Allura but Alice wasn't able to find a chance to speak to her.

Though considering the incident, her schedule has been rather free since the Academy was trying to get things rolling again once the repairs were made.

But as always, her main goal was still the Zenias. Since her vision was now impaired, her 'performance' as Kale was going to be affected. In order to reduce the impact of having one eye, Alice needed to fight.

A lot.

It is through constant fighting could she truly get used to this view and there were two options.

A, she goes back to the arena.

B, she takes some commissions.

Taking commissions as Kale was difficult since she didn't have an ID nor did she have a Guild License. But it wasn't impossible, she just needed a fake ID and the best one to do that would be the Underground for the right price.

Alice wanted to limit her dealings with the Underground if possible and the consequences of faking a Guild ID were unknown to her. She doesn't know if they have a method of tracking her down or not and she wasn't willing to risk it at this moment.

Naturally, this meant going back to the Arena.

With how much she's been relying on the Arena, Alice couldn't help but feel as though she's becoming more like Ria but as it stands, it's more for convenience than actual gambling.

Upon making herself a new identity using the Mirror Jester Sigil, Alice tried to sign up for the Arena once more but her hopes were shattered. After her little stun as Kale and causing quite a big loss for the Arena in terms of earnings, they were restricting who could sign up to participate.

The limitations basically made it impossible for Alice to sign up as she had to give up on plan B and fall back on plan A, guild requests.

But just as she thought of this, she gave herself a huge facepalm. She's been so preoccupied with tricking Zenias and the Underground that she forgot she could just take the Guild requests as herself.

It's not like people aren't going to see her new 'cute' seal that Kaden placed on her.

Finding a chance to dispel the disguise, Alice made her way to the guild as a few students who were wandering the city noticed her eye.

Since Alice had always been seen with an abnormal right eye, seeing her having it closed was rather eye catching.

Ignoring the curious gazes, Alice made her way inside the guild and looked at the currently available requests.

Once again, most of the easy ones were getting stolen by Vultures while the hard ones were left untouched.

'Right now I have a three Star licence. If I want to take the four star quests I'll need to do another rank up with an examiner. I should probably get a three star hunt and then arrange a rank up for when I come back.' Alice mused to herself as in the end, she picked a rather simple Hunt commission just outside of the city.

It'll take her a short journey via sea but she could get it done in around two days since most of it was spent travelling.

There were other Hunts that was closer to the city but this one in particular, took her interest.

[Hunt a Red Thorn Arachne]

A Red Thorn Arachne has been terrorising the Cradles Orphanage. It's been appearing in the vicinity and kills anyone who approaches it while creating a territory around the home.

The reward of the Hunt wasn't anything to be impressed with but according to Cayla, Red Thorn Arachne's aren't known to create a territory like this and that this was too conspicuous for the Arachne.

With this in mind, Alice recalled the Blood Moon Maiden that she killed and seeing as how this was another abnormal beast, she wanted to check it out and see what was going on. It was wishful thinking but if it was indeed a byproduct of the Eclipse then there was a rare chance that it might give her a Sigil similar to her second Sigil.

Upon accepting the commission, Alice made her way down to the docks and took a boat to Verten, a small town to the west of Silverwind Valley where the Cradles Orphanage was located.