Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

they have been entangled with van's soul in a manner even Rodcort can't undo. Since the curse is in a fragmeted state throughout Van's giant soul this should be highly unlikely.

he might get the predate ability, which would then fuse with his soul devour and god devour skills

 

Well, the side of Alda and Redcorte always uses the Demon King Guduranis as a basis for the power of Vandalieu, so when he does something that the previous Demon King could not do, there is always fear and confusion in the god on Alda's side. On eating soul, it was Redcorte who had the greatest astonishment between himself and Alda. And the only people who know that Vandalieu can eat the soul, excluding their allies, are the reincarnators.

 

From the sounds of things the Mimics can choose which skills they steal. They specifically went for Van's most powerful magic and the Demon King skill that kept his fragments from going berserk. I don't think they would be inclined to take his curses, assuming they're even considered skills and not permanent status effects.

 

Personally I found Mimics to be a bad choice. If Van somehow fails to get what was stolen, many readers will call it BS and claim that it is just a bad way to weaken him. On the other hand, if Van eats another god it will make him that much more powerful again...

 

I think it's a good choice as at this point Van is so powerful it's difficult to come up with an enemy that's still a threat to him. He beat Heinz's full S-rank party despite being in a much weaker body. Most of the lesser gods he encounters cower in fear before him. About the only things left that could possibly be a threat are major gods like Alda, Bellwood, or the old Demon King. Having a character who can steal skills (which is already a pretty common trope in isekai fiction) is a good way to make them threatening by using his own power against him.

I expect that he'll get his skills back before the arc is over, and if he doesn't, the reacquired skills will probably level up to the same or similar level. Maybe both will happen, but his reacquired death magic will evolve into a different higher level magic, giving him two.

More importantly I expect that Van will get the skill-stealing ability when he eats this god, further powering him up. And maybe his Demon King skill will level up to 10 and evolve into a Demon God skill.

 

What chapter does Van meet the other reincarnators like that trio trying to warn him about Murakami?

 

I think this was asked a couple pages back and Kari said it was the first chapter of the ninth arc

 

In my mind it should be very hard to "steal" a skill from someone. This particular god specialises in stealing things from others. I think we can all agree that creating a soul, changing an existing soul (eg healing or adding new abilities) and destroying a soul are all different things. Van can destroy souls but he can't really change an existing soul or create new ones. Van can also steal abilities by eating deal souls. In the general case, I see no reason why we couldn't treat a "curse" as conceptually similar to a "skill" and something that can be stolen (ie transferred from one soul to another). If transferring/stealing a skill is much easier than creating or destroying one then the same might be true of a curse.

Possibly. I'm not sure how clear Van's situation is with his curse currently. If you'd asked me before this arc if it would be possible to steal skills I would have guessed "no" though. It's probably not something Rodcorte had considered.

Yep, from the description those two skills were specifically targeted. I dunno if the evil god would know about the curses - he might mistake them for something else, for example (eg basis for death attribute magic). Soul curses should be ultra rare I'd imagine so mistakes would be possible.

This is partly why I suggested Van's curses get taken. In absolute terms he would go backwards but in terms of growth rate and potential and so on he would be better off.

 

Another random/crazy idea...

Back in chapter 163, when Alda realises that Van has probably freed Vida, one of the first things he does is to order improved security for Botin and Peria. It's phrased vaguely but the implication is that Vida might attack Botin or Peria for some reason. Those on Vida's side don't understand Alda's actions, as far as I understand. In the latest arc it's noted that this guard is still there.

I don't remember there being a real answer for this. So, some speculation: Alda incorrectly believes that Botin and Peria were attacked by a deranged Vida and that is part of the reason why he attacked Vida. If so the perpetrator was probably Bellwood. Eg Bellwood was having trouble persuading Alda to attack Vida (regarding her new races) so to get Alda to move to action he falsified evidence and made Vida out to be a "criminal".

If so the current arc could have much bigger implications for the overall story - if Botin and/or Peria can recover then they can testify about this. The full details might not come out immediately though.

 

New chapter! It turns out the current evil god antagonist wants to be the demon king as part of a plan to maximize his worship. He basically wants to assimilate Van, and then Alda. While it's hypothetically possible, I just can't see that actually happening to our protagonist.

Also, Alda and co. just found out that an evil god with dubious intentions completely slipped past their radar for who knows how long, and he only got caught because the mimics made a scene after stealing Van's skills. Now they're all left wondering who will win and what that will mean for them.

My first post!

 

Thanks for the recap I was about to read the last three. Its nice knowing what I'm going to see before I read the MTL

 

Congratulations on your first comment! Mine was also in this thread.

 

I remember that. Brings a tear to my eye

 

Since it helps, I might as well get into the details:

It seems the evil god (whose name I won't even try to spell without a decent translator) successfully assimilated demon king fragments, but the fragments put up so much of a fight that absorbing just one took about a thousand years. He wanted the Demon King skill because it removes that sort of limitation.

If the situation were less serious, the evil god's excessive boasting would appear almost comical. I guess he didn't get the memo that Van still technically qualifies as the demon king, but I could be wrong. Guduranis was known to be tyrannical and arrogant, and I think that imprinted onto the evil god when he absorbed fragments. After all, the fragments he absorbed were still the fragments of Guduranis when he absorbed them, and they probably will be until Van destroys him and takes the fragments for himself.

The evil god is actually missing a lot of info in general. He knew that Van is the second Demon King, but not that Van is basically the second Zakkart as well. He was a bit confused when Gufadogan joined the party.

He's also wary of Van's ability to crush souls, but didn't plan to steal the 2 associated skills in the first place, even though it makes Van a huge threat, despite having been robbed of 2 other very important skills. He probably thinks that it doesn't matter, since he believes he's more than a match for Van, and he can get all of Van's skills once he wins. He might be able to hold his own against Van for a while, but I think he's still underestimating Van a little too much. And whenever an enemy underestimates Van, they tend to die a lot faster.

Van tried to fire a Death Cannon, but the lack of convergence broke it into a barrage of Death Bullets. He clearly needs to level up Death Attribute Magic, and fast. Good thing he has 2 job bonuses and prior knowledge to help him with that. In any case, he can always use spirits to channel magic for him, if nothing else works over the course of the battle.

Now for pure conjecture:

I wonder if Van himself is immune to complete assimilation. His soul is an eldritch Picasso, to put it mildly. The evil god can take skills and now demon king fragments with ease, but he might have trouble figuring out how to incorporate Van's entire soul into his own. That might even be how the battle ends, for all I know. Abnormal Soul Form FTW!

We now have 2 overpowered characters with demon king fragments and the ability to properly control them as their own, and they are fighting each other. Does anyone else have a good guess for how the fragments might act strangely during this battle? I'm not sure how they would react to 2 main bodies that both want fragments from the other.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

 

In a way, I think it's somewhat reasonable for this little evil god to get a bit cocky, since as far as he could tell his plan was working as expected until that point. He didn't have much choice except to go on the offensive either. It's also hard to gather good intel on Van - Rodcorte and Alda have been struggling with this for years.

Anyway...

In the end Van dialled up his ghost magic power to the "mountain destroyer" setting and fired. And that the resulting explosion was heard all the way in the city. I guess the temple will be reduced to a smoking crater (tm) but it seems our little evil god is still alive and kicking.

 

Well, even though little god may have stolen skills, but he is lacking in control. Like in games, one does not become pro with a skill just by getting it. One also needs to learn a lot about it, for example, proper timing. Heck, in most games players tend to fail a lot more after getting new OPed skills than they did before acquiring them.

 

I'd say the situation for the evil god is rather different for the two particular skills. This god already has experience with Demon King fragments, both with absorbing them and with using them. So the Demon King skill should prove to be immediately useful (and it seems he uses it after Van's attack). The situation I would compare it to is back when Van was learning basic fighting skills and would struggle with goblins... and then he suddenly got the skill LV1 and he was much better immediately.

The death attribute magic it would be another thing entirely. I dunno if the god can even use it at all but I think it would take a long time to figure out how to use it properly and attempting to do so in the battle could actually end up being counter-productive - for example, if the god tries some ability without understanding the mana cost and ends up using up all his mana...

 

I have a question, is van first person/being that can use death magic ? Vida seemed to recognize the death magic from before, did demon king or some other evil god had this magic too ?

 

Can someone tell me the exact skills that Van lost?

 

It is speculated (or pretty much confirmed) that during the experiments in Origin trace amounts of the Demon King's mana, which sticked to Van's soul after the four Champion's souls were destroyed, was activated.
Aside from the demon king (and members of the eighth guidance) Van is the only holder of the death attribute and it has reached a slightly altered version (e.g. eating souls)

Demon King and dead king mage (awakened from death attribute magic)