Abyssal Awakening

Chapter 293: Options For The Fourth Sigil

"My baby… I'm sorry…"

"Alice!!!"

"Get the f*ck off her!"

"Mother!"

A myriad of shouts echoed through Alice's mind. Sounds of panic, sadness and anger.

Slowly opening her eyes, Alice yawned before stretching her body. Scratching her hair, she could briefly remember the shouts she heard before waking up.

It had been a while since she had last dreamt of the past like this.

'It was probably my birthday again...' Alice thought with a sigh.

Shaking her head, she examined her body. After a good rest, she felt far more energetic.

Activating her Sigils, she saw that they had returned to their original states and Tiamat's power disappeared.

'Seems like there's a time limit to the modification.'

Glancing around, she saw that she was still sleeping on the sofa while Kaden and Allura were nowhere to be seen.

Wondering where they could be, Alice got up and began wandering around the living room. Decoration wise, there wasn't much here since the two probably spent most of their time in the office around the castle.

Especially considering their roles, they'll be patrolling the lands or dealing with beasts.

But the bits of decoration that Alice could see mostly consisted of plants or trinkets that may hold emotional value to the two.

Glancing towards the stairs, Alice rubbed her chin as she was tempted to see what it was like upstairs. However, this wasn't her home.

"It'll be pretty rude…" Alice muttered as she shrugged.

"Pretty rude?"

"ARHHG!!!" Alice jumped up in shock as Allura's voice rang out behind her.

"Can you stop that?! I swear you never know how to show up normally!" Alice complained as she felt like she was going to have a heart attack every time Allura showed up.

Whether it's the future or the past, Allura would keep doing this.

"It's not my fault if you don't keep an eye on your surroundings." Allura rolled her eyes.

"She's not wrong. Though it's not exactly correct either." Kaden added with a small chuckle.

"What do you mean?"

Seeing that Kaden was about to expose her secret, Allura waved her hand in a panic but Kaden simply smirked.

"She does a little trick to hide her presence until she's directly behind you before speaking. She doesn't show it but it's her favourite thing to do." Kaden laughed while Allura pouted in anger and punched Kaden on the arm.

"So it was on purpose!"

"It's on purpose every time. But setting that aside, how are you feeling?" He asked as Alice grinned and flexed her arm despite the lack of muscle.

"Much better. I didn't think I was exhausted to that extent."

"You were rather busy. But I'm glad you're feeling better since you'll need to be in top condition for what we have planned next." Kaden narrowed his eyes.

Making his way over to the dinner table, he prepared more snacks for Allura and more mead for Alice.

"So while you were sleeping, me and Lua decided to give you a bit of help. Since you mentioned that you wanted to be a close to mid ranged fighter, we figured that having a fourth Sigil to help augment this might be the way to go." Kaden began to explain as he took out several sheets of paper.

"With your demonstration over your three Sigils, I'd say it's a good time for you to get a fourth. What do you say?"

Mulling over her options, Alice sat down and closed her eyes.

Allura had told her to make sure she fully understood the power of each Sigil before advancing so it could supplement her weaknesses.

Her first Sigil simply boosted her physical power while giving hallucinations. Second helped manifest her flames and blood control. Her third manifested blood and metal.

With all the suggestions and spars she's had, Alice was 80% confident in saying that she's explored most of the avenues of her power.

Granted, she could improve on her control of the third Sigil since if she could accomplish Nyer's suggestion of forcing them to breathe in the metal, it could become quite the menacing ability.

'I haven't been able to give that a try since the spars have been against Allura and Nyer. But it should be okay once I get back to reality.'

"Alright. What do you suggest for my fourth Sigil?" Alice asked as Kaden held up two fingers.

"The option me and Lua both agreed would be pretty good for you would be a Sigil that makes your opponents weaker rather than making you stronger. There are multiple ways you can go about it, but the main thing is that you're struggling with landing your attacks.

"Of course, part of the reason is that you're fighting those with overwhelmingly high physical power and experience compared to you. But no one would care when you're in a life or death fight.

"The second option you can go with is utility. A way for your attacks to breach the defences or reactions of your opponents. You can go through some of the options here and if you want something more specific, just let me know and I can go have a look for you." Kaden smiled, passing the sheets to Alice.

Nodding her head, she began to flip through the different options.

The first thing that Alice noticed was that the layout for these was different to the ones she'd seen in the future. The way Allura organised the options was far cleaner while Kaden focused mostly on the beast's fighting styles and only briefly talked about the abilities of each Sigil.

'It's probably different in the future since we have more knowledge on what the Sigils do.' Alice thought to herself.

From reducing movement speed, strength to even vision, there were a myriad of 'debuff' options that she could choose from.

'Reducing movement is nice and all but I need something to let me hurt them. Allura has the benefit of her blessing so even if her attack is a little slower, she doesn't need to worry about defence. But mine is slow yet can be blocked easily.'

She wanted to see if there was a Sigil that could help her shred defences of her target.

But even after going through all of the options for her level, the best she found that suited her needs was Sigils which decreased the resistance towards certain elements such as fire or blood abilities.

'Velouria mentioned that my violet flames simply manifested as such is because I took inspiration from Allura. There's a good chance that these flames will change form once I discover something more unique to me so picking Fire Resistance reduction might not be the best choice.'

Since the fourth Sigil represented a step into a new stage of power for all those beneath Abyss Lord level, she wanted to make sure her foundations were good. Not only that, but she also wanted it to be Anti Hunter based so she still had a chance of attaining triple Resonance.

'What do I want my fourth Sigil to be? Right now, if I was to fight Allura who's shown up to five Sigils, how would I beat her? My fourth Sigil needs to be something I can use to surpass Allura.' Alice thought to herself.

To her, the strongest person she knew of right now was Allura. Enris was stronger but she couldn't quite comprehend her attacks so it was hard to evaluate what she needed against Enris.

But Allura was different. Allura has taken the time to explain, demonstrate and show Alice her strength.

Without even looking at the utility abilities, Alice glanced over to Kaden and opened her mouth.

"Are there any… better teleportation abilities like the one that the Maiden of the Blood Moon offers? I've tried out her teleporting ability before and honestly, if I can get something similar to that for my fourth Sigil I think it'll increase my power as a short to mid ranged fighter." Alice asked as Kaden thought about it for a moment.

"Maiden of the Blood Moon huh? She's not a bad choice. Although... rather than her teleporting ability, she's better known for her blood control and manifestation. There are different versions of teleportation, what type are you looking for?"

"Something fast and snappy. Would be good if I could use it back to back to disorientate my opponents." Alice replied as Kaden nodded his head and made a mental note.

"And how strong of a beast do you think you can handle?"

"I can probably deal with five star beasts with enough information. I don't know about six stars but it could be possible." Alice replied confidently.

Her biggest issue had always been her physical body. With partial Bloodline release giving her that extra boost, even if it was just briefly, it'll help her bridge the gap between her and the beasts.

Not only that, but by having partial Bloodline release, she could use the boost in strength to take away a sample of her target's blood. Making it so that she'll gain another boost to keep up.

Once that happens, it's simply a case of finishing them off.

"Hmm… Alright, I have a few candidates in mind. I'll see if any of them have turned their back against Master's rules. If they have, they're free to be taken down." Kaden smiled.

While humans hunted whatever beasts they could get their hands on, the people of Ayr were different. They respected Velouria's rules and made it a point not to aim for the beasts that were trying their best to go against their nature.

For Alice, he could only hope that the beast he was thinking of could be tracked down.

The beast that has arguably one of the best teleportation abilities, second only to a few extreme exceptions and himself.

Thinking about this, Kaden created a portal and left the house to track down his target.