“Welcome to Daddy’s ummm, ‘Workshop’? Remember, don’t shit or piss in here, cause there’s no gravity and yeah, you’re like two and a half days old, so you should understand when and where you’re allowed to dispose of waste now, right?” Michael and Rachael suddenly appeared within the middle of the Arcane Prison. The little Lamia was obviously amazed and confused by the strange sense of weightlessness, but considering how young she was, it only took a few minutes before she was acclimated.

He snickered as the baby squirmed around and attempted to ‘swim’ through the air, using her serpentine tail. However, she only started spinning around helplessly, so he needed to telekinetically stop her body.

“Calm down Rei-Rei… Just relax~. Look at all the pretty lights; those are called ‘souls’. Hehehe~, this is where your Daddy puts people who… What the fuck? Goddamn it! Where the hell did those angelic assholes go?! Hmmm, menu~, list of ‘inhabitants’… So they’re in the Necropolis, huh? Is it possible to get a visual on that?” As he spoke to himself, a holographic screen suddenly appeared before him and Rachael.

She yelled “Goo~, goo~! Gagagagana~!” as they watched ten decrepit and incredibly weak-looking ‘Humans’ huddling around an enormous fire-pit. There was a large boar roasting above the purple flame and they didn’t even seem to care that it was a demonic beast.

Michael smirked, muttering “I guess they’re doing fine? Meh, if they do end up dying in there, at least they’ll be able to reincarnate? If they survive, then good for them; maybe they’ll be able to appreciate the value of life a bit more, after they’ve experienced a bit of suffering?”

It wasn’t as if they personally harmed anyone that the Nephilim knew or cared about, but committing mass murder upon innocent civilians, whom had no way of possibly fighting back, was a pretty damning crime. If he didn’t punish them, their ‘Goddess’ would have done so herself.

Quickly losing his interest, Michael waved his hand and the holographic display seemed to disappear. When he turned towards Rachael, he immediately yelled “Oi, be careful with that thing!” but his warning went unheeded.

The tiny Lamia had grabbed hold of a bright-white wisp, unconsciously using her Arcane aura to physically touch the mysterious glowing ball, and then attempted to eat it. Unfortunately, the Nephilim was a moment too slow, and the spirit was able to not only reach the mana-core in her brain, but force her soul outside of her body.

He ignored the physical and directly captured the tiny golden snake that was floating around outside of her head. After storing her safely in his own mana-core, he glared into those crimson, serpentine eyes.

A sinister smile appeared on that adorable porcelain-skinned face, as an incredibly high-pitched voice escaped her throat: “I can’t believe that such a fool was actually able to slay me… However, I have already assimilated with this child’s body; you won’t be able to forcefully remove me, unless you’re willing to destroy your own daughter in the process! Now, release me from this prison, then provide me with a ‘new’, more powerful form, and I shall return this one to you! If not, then I shall spend eternity torturing this ‘innocent’ little mongrel’s soul! Haha, hahaha~!”

Michael sighed dramatically, asking “Are you a total fucking moron? You know absolutely nothing about Summoning, so why don’t I show you a fun little trick?” Without hesitation, he grabbed the baby in the palm of his right hand, then casually used ‘Overpowering Aura’ and instantly deactivated her mana-core.

Within seconds, he telekinetically removed the pure-white wisp of that former ‘Angel’ and returned his daughter’s soul. He channeled a bit of his mana into her body and she easily came back to life on her own.

Then he glared at the ball of light in the palm of his left hand and whispered “You were a few centuries old; reached level thirty-six, rank-D and became a Boss… Your Willpower’s pretty high and your Luck seems decent as well. Hmmm~, I think Rachael had the right idea; you do look pretty tasty. The question is: How the hell do I steal the power from your soul? You’re basically just an astral body, containing lots of information and should be powered by extraordinarily large amounts of mana. You probably aren’t ‘really’ a soul at all, but more like an anchor, which connects your soul to this world. It’s not nearly as powerful as mine, but it’s way more ‘stable’. That’s why NPCs are able to stay within this universe so much longer than Players.”

After that, he remembered something Darius had told him: “Money is power, literally and metaphorically… The currency that’s used in this world contains shit-tons of mana, so shouldn’t I be able to turn ‘that’ into experience or stats? No, the ‘System’ is in place to prevent such ridiculous and overpowered cheat-like techniques. Well, it’s probably also there to provide Arcana with a method to steal mana directly from… holy fucking cunt-sauce! The coins come from the souls of Players; kinda like a really intense subscription fee, hahaha~! In that case, NPCs are basically playing the game for ‘free’, and even making a profit off of it. Probably has something to do with planes of existence or some such nonsense?”

“Gagaga~! Papananamana! Omm~, moomoomoo~!” As he was quietly talking to himself, Rachael managed to escaped from his loose grasp and jumped away from his hand. She then began yelling excitedly, while spinning around randomly through the room.

Even though the Nephilim seemed like he wasn’t paying attention to his daughter, all of the wisps that she passed by, were telekinetically cleared away. Thus, she was unable to try ‘eating’ any more of the weird glowing balls.

“Hmmm~, Talia has that Passive which automatically transforms her excess mana into experience over time… I wonder if the temporal element is a method of restraint or if it’s actually necessary? Like, if I try to absorb the mana from some money or souls, will it just escape out into the environment? It’s also possible that my mana-core or body might explode… Ugh, shit, why didn’t I test this out earlier?! If I die now, it’ll cost me a whole level to revive! Ah, there’s also the chance that Rei might get hurt if I ended up turning into a nuclear bomb, or whatever.” Michael was slowly moving the air currents around in the room, so that his body would drift towards his daughter.

The wisp in his hand suddenly took the shape of a tiny, naked, angelic woman, who desperately struggled to break free from his grasp. Then she turned into a beautiful dragon of light for a few moments; after that, she transformed into a golden spider, and finally a weak, frail and incredibly old, rat-woman.

She sighed dramatically, whispering in a raspy voice “I’m sorry about my actions earlier… It’s funny how different people can turn out, based on the environment they were raised in, heh-heh~. In the first life I can remember, I was born a poor orphaned brat in a shitty underground death-trap of a city; I did some adventuring in my youth, eventually came home again. Had plenty of kids, grand-children and even great-grandkids, hahaha~, all of that in less than eighty years. I always wanted to become powerful, something ‘greater’ than what everyone thought was possible back then. It wasn’t until I was old and decrepit, when I finally reached my peak. What’s your name anyway?”

Michael snickered, “You can call me Mike, but who the hell are you? Ya don’t exactly strike me as a crazed mass-murder… Hell, you kinda look familiar for some reason.”

Hearing that, her illusory ears twitched and her grey eyes seemed to be examining his face clearly. She chuckled, shaking her head and muttering “You look nothing like him, but then again, I reincarnated into a spider when I first arrived in this world…”

After a few seconds, she answered “My name was Nadja, umm, this may seem strange but does the phrase ‘Who is like God?’ mean anything to you?”

The Nephilim smirked, “Of course, that’s basically just what ‘Michael’ means… and what the fucking dicksauce?! You, you’re a character from a goddamn story I wrote a few months ago! Nadja Giese! She was an old rat-woman, just like you! Seriously, she looked exactly like you, at least that’s how I described her appearance…”

She immediately asked “Was I the matriarch of an underground city, and an incredible Water Mage, who found enlightenment in the twilight of her life?”

However, he just started laughing hysterically, eventually shaking his head and telling her “Nah~, Nadja was a throwaway character, hell, I barely even remembered her… I think the most important thing she ever did in that story was teaching this bear-guy how Water Magic works. Well, I was planning on bringing her back to life later on, as like, I don’t know, a cat-girl or something. Anyway, now that I think about it, my only regret in coming to this world, is that I never got around to finishing that novel… Meh~, there’s no way in hell I’m gonna start working on it again from scratch though. Not unless the fate of the universe depended on it… or maybe if I was really fucking bored.”