Creation Online

It took longer than expected to move further than the first topmost hallway.

Returning to the Center of Worlds or the Star Ring was inappropriate unless her children were still being nuisances in the mortal realm. Akasha had some of the things to be done under control as such there was no point in returning for now.

While it peeved Hilde that she would not be able to see her children or watch Vaustaris improve she knew it was better to finish the tower conquest. A feeling that the rewards would be important for her. Still, she never hesitated when Akasha told her one of the children needed her. It felt like these pop-outs and pop-ins were the real reason for the longer clear of this Tower.

The Tower was a whole different ball game. Conversations with the Unborn confirmed that the Tower had twelve floors. From the top to the bottom.

Each floor had only a hallway with a flight of stairs that interconnected all the floors together.

The descent had been fiery and violent. The Unborns were able to dish out attacks to tbe Gursers and also defend while simultaneously throwing the Elite Gursers one by one behind to be cleansed.

Hilde found herself practicing her Divine Purity with more lax. She tried different ways of controlling it while purifying the Gursers.

From instant flooding to careful and slow trickles taking time to wash the waves of smoldering fires.

Her pull and push of the energy helped her to feel out the internal circuit of the Gursers sending even more energy in there to mend the various chars and burns inflicted.

The process led to a better version of her Unborn. Each having lesser black magma stone bodies and more skin toned with various black stone materials across their bodies.

It was astonishing to watch.

Hilde lost in her experiments barely noted things around her. Engrossed in perfecting the Unborn.

Her divine purity flowed into bones and their marrow cleansing slowly the coagulated ash of over-roasted bone and the existing residue of blood that had settled unto their bones turning them white again.

Her logic had been simple. If the fires had made the Unborn black burned bone then her divinity should do something else.

But first, she needed to clear off the past effects of the former divinity within them. The Gursers each lost a lot of black goop. Some were in liquid, others in tar, and still more floated out as ash.

The Gursers got whiter and more normal-looking before she filled them with the new energy that kept them tethered. Soon enough her flushing got more and more precise to the extent that the bones began to look uncannily familiar.

Even better the energy filling them changed their looks. Unlike the first Unborn, their new details were more profound.

[Insight - Divine Purity]

[+5% Comprehension ]

It seemed that the basis for Divine Purity wasn't just the healing of wounds and washing away of infirmities and what should not be as the energy considered it.

Able to use it to actively push forward into parts of the body not to just heal this time but also to cleanse and remove the stacked-up effects within the Gurser's body had increased her comprehension of the Insight.

She slowly had the new Gursers mingle back with the old and tried attempting to remove these impurities that she'd discovered.

While it was difficult to have a better reaction from the cleaning there were still changes. Just little changes but noticeable.

The younger Unborn. The newer ones that is, were of a lighter black skin tone. Something Hilde was beginning to wonder if was due to the impurity or from their race before they became Gursers. Their body size was leaner more fluid and faster than the older ones.

The older though packed the strength. Almost like they had retained something from their lesser purification. The young had no such issue.

As such by the time Hilde and her group of Unknown got to the sixth floor, there was already a crowd of Unborn massed up between her and the enemy.

At this point, Hilde was less active in battle and more of a supportive figure. Not only was she able to purify the Gursers sent back but also she began to actively try to understand the mechanism of using divine purity in enhancing cells.

She started with one Unborn slowly feeling her way through his body with the divinity. Guiding it through his pores and into his muscles and flesh. Normally such a thing would have had an untold effect on mortals but Hilde had already one of two things.

The Unborns were either not mortals or they had been so severely affected by the flame divinity that they were in a way resistant to it. Not in its effects but mostly its normal drawbacks.

As was seen when she filled the cells of the Unborn. He stiffened at first before his eyes once white caught a bit of golden glow. Dim but there.

[Insight - Divine Purity]

[+5% Comprehension ]

His movements increased, his speed and strength doubling like he was under the effect of adrenaline. If adrenaline made you as fast as a small car. The Unborn must have felt his capability to do more as he surged forward past the others to engage the Gursers.

The rest if they could be appalled just watched as the Unborn took on the Gursers. Faster and quicker. His blows with the flat side of his sword sent them down into the hold of his brothers.

Hilde seeing the results calculated how long it took for the buff effects to wane. It lasted a bit of fifteen minutes by which time the sixth floor was cleared and in a rush almost like he knew the surge was fading rushed down to the fifth floor.

Hilde purified the captured Gursers bringing up the number of Unborn to sixty. With each floor, the number of elites dropped. Almost unconventionally.

"You'd think the top of a tower would be the most important", she stated when entering the next hall.

What truly bothered her though was the lack of quality. Normally when the quantity decreased the quality did. But all in all her Unborn had been fighting the same reducing number of the same Gurser Elites.

It was foreboding. Almost like the tower was in a hurry to get her to the end. If felt wrong. Like she was running out of luck the more she descended.

Hilde stopped buffing the Unborn as they fought but instead focused on herself.

"If it gets tougher then I can only get better. Now, what do I have in case of a potential Destroyer-level battle". Going through her arsenal of both weapons and skills she realized one thing.

"In terms of combat, I'm no match against them. First was able to hold me till I caught him in his own bait. While I don't want to risk depending on them I need to be prepared for any possibility that the Tower boss can wipe out my Unborn. So what do I need to assist or level the playing field? More importantly, what could a higher-ranked Gurser do? "

Hilde thought back to all the skills all the Gursers had shown and came to one realization.

"FlameBearer, Flame Enhanced, Flame Worshipper. Three ranks each with different power levels. First was purely skilled but I'm sure the rank was what made him able to kick my rocks out of the air. Stone was after all the stronger of the two in a normal setting.

It made a bit of sense to her. Flame bearers were the lowest, mostly just having the flames keeping them tethered. Burning them from within and slowly attempting to change them more than they already had.

The flame enhanced must have found a way to control or tame the fire despite the pain and used it to strengthen themselves. Finally the flame worshippers.

Hilde thought back to the scene with First. His seated form his heated gaze. Transfixed on the fire.

"Worshippers eh. Which would make the next rank something like a devout or atleast one who might have been blessed by the divine fire and not in the same burning way the Gursers were". Hilde found this possibility more likely but disturbing, especially with the thought of a flame-spitting boss rearing up on her head.

"A bad time to not have any water-based insight yet " she muttered noting how screwed she would be. "Got Primordial Ice though". Still, it was a matter of using her skills efficiently. Something she'd not been doing since making the Unborn.

"My luck truly is dwindling " a frown and then a sigh. Her eyes moved to the already completed fight now with over fifty Unborn already descending while ten hung back to hold down the Gursers whom Hilde was yet to purify.

The fifth floor cleared she entered the already cleared fourth floor beginning the purification while the ten Unborn stood around her to hold down the two Gursers.

Then they all descended once more and just like expected there was no elite just a larger mob of flame bearers that swarmed them like the ocean tide. She realized how huge this room was. For the sixty-five Unborn to stand in a straight horizontal line one-on-one with the Gursers it showed how wide the floor was.

The clash was chaotic.

The Unborn unable to use their swords in such tight quarters turned to pummeling. Each striking their fists onto the Gurser before them. Shattering skulls and splintering spines. All through this Hilde sat behind in a lotus position as she sought to understand more of the insights hidden within both her Divine Purity and Earthen Grace. Simultaneously she hoped to learn as much about the combos Akasha had formed for her.

She could feel that she would soon need it.