Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

True. In addition to Mental Encroachment, Abyss probably plays a part in collecting fragments like that. Recall that whenever someone tries to mess with Van's head or examine him in detail, it totally backfires, much to the attacker's horror or fascination.

 

That combination are scary.

 

It's meant to be scary, at least to the normal characters. For us readers, it provides fun little out-of-genre moments. It helps us remember that this story is not high fantasy, but fairy tale.

 

I would say more cosmic horror (with a dash of friend making) than fairy tale though...

 

Nope, Van got [Demon King Body] immediately after absorbing a demon king fragment that contained an amnesiac piece of Guduranis' ego, the Demon King's Shadow, (It's... complicated, but basically it was the part of Guduranis that's his actual soul/mind, the majority of which has been sealed in Rodcorte and Alda's god areas) by convincing it it was him with his normal mental encroachment/grotesque mind shtick.

This is probably also why it's remained an entirely separate unique skill from the [Demon King] and [Great Demon King] skills Van also has.

 

Actually, Abyss only works on vision-based skills. The ability is based on a Greek (I think) proverb. "Be careful when you stare into the abyss, for when you stare too long the abyss begins to stare back at you." So, it reflects the effects of all vision based skills. (Speaking of which, Darcia has the demonic eye of healing. Does that mean she will heal herself any time she heals Van? Both of them have super-speed regeneration though, so I don't think either of them are ever going to need this form of healing.)

Anyway, what the proverb actually refers to is that if you try to go to great lengths to examine the nature of a corrupt group or individual it will begin to affect you and drag you into the exact same lifestyle you are trying to deconstruct and understand for whatever previously virtuous goals you may have been trying to achieve.

This makes me wonder, what will happen when (because it's no longer a question of if) Van eats Guduranis' soul. Will it be destroyed like all the others, or will it join with the shadow in his mind-space after being mentally encroached? He has this fancy hive-mind skill that he acquired a little before getting the shadow which allowed him to converse with his reflection from the trial of Zakkart, and then when the shadow joined it also stood alongside the reflection as another double of Van's personality. I'm certain Bander will join the hive mind as a separate but joined mental entity from the main Van whenever he returns from Origin as well. The question is whether or not the 5 split pieces of Guarduranis' soul will join after being mentally encroached, or if they will just be destroyed.

 

Fairy tales and cosmic horror are strikingly similar. The main differences are that fairy tales rely more on superstition and local culture, while cosmic horror is more imaginative and makes us all feel like individual grains of sand lost in the desert of eternity. Also, fairy tales are weirder.

I regret that I don't remember which chapter I picked this up from, but the skill was described as indicating that Vandalieu is the abyss to be gazed into, instead of the other way around. This is both ominous and vague, so the skill probably has multiple thematically related uses. Interpreted one way, it does means that attacks reliant on vision backfire. For a broader and more abstract meaning of 'gaze'...

I'm not saying that Abyss applies an effect to everything, but it probably is multifaceted. Or I'm just too tired to think straight when I type out these long explanations.

 

From what I can see Van has become sensitive of "gazes" and I believe that it is due to the "abyss" skill.

 

It's Friedrich Nietzsche actually, from his book Beyond Good and Evil: "Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein. / He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." He was German.

Weirdly, Bander was already basically operating like a remote part of the hive mind while still on Origin and before the skill name change, with him getting at least one "update" of skills and knowledge from the main Vandalieu server in side chapter 36.

Chapter 98, When he picked his first guider job, Demon Guider. Skill explanation of Abyss is in chapter 99:

 

Ok, wow. I was just in a PM discussion with kari-no-sugata in which we discussed how vengefulness often leads you toward a downward spiral of increasing viciousness and justifying all of your monstrous behaviors. However, Van for some reason seems to be completely immune from this hazard of the avenger path. We were going down the line of it being a product of his grotesque mind skill, but I had completely forgotten about this particular line.

So, it seems there IS another use for his abyss skill. It prevents his personality from being warped by the vengeance streak he is constantly on.

 

Well, you may still be right. It may very well be a case of correlation instead of causation. i.e., you need a personality like Van's (something the system classifies as Mental Corruption: Level 10 or above) to obtain the skill, rather than the skill itself actually protecting you from falling into the mindsets of others. The Abyss skill apparently has very extreme acquisition conditions after all.

 

I'm not sure if the author ever confirmed it but it seems the first hint of the Abyss skill is back when he first met Eleanora:
https://www.lightnovelbastion.com/release.php?p=650

I think it was noted later that Eleanora's charm skill had been reflected upon her at this time, which is why she found it so hard to kill Van. That's basically Abyss in action before it had become developed enough to become its own unique skill.

It's possibly worth noting that he didn't get the Abyss skill itself until after he got Grotesque Mind (it came along with Demon Guider)

 

The thing making this theory a little more complicated though is that Van from the beginning had an undead charm skill that is part of his death attribute magic. It was confirmed earlier when he met the Ghouls that the decendents of the undead Zakkart are considered semi-undead to his undead charm skill, meaning that it works quite well on them but it is a little more subtle than the instant complete transormation that true undead have. The Semi-undead Ghouls and Vampires have a greater ability to resist the charm, basically they can resist it at much lower levels than the likes of Borkus was able to despite being a complete undead due to his very high level.

This was the reason why the guy who came with Elenora and the other vampire subordinates were unaffected, but Elenora stood there and was talking to Van for a while, and to top it off her life was also saved by Van when her partner went and decided to just kill them both. This would certainly make her more susceptible to Van's undead charm skill without needing her charming demon eye reflected on her.

Not saying you're wrong here, but it is very hard to use this instance as evidence considering that major and far simpler alternate explanation.

 

didn't one of the evil gods say that DK killed all that had the abyss skill before he started his conquest. problem: no skills in DK world. if abyss is something that van had before he got the skill than i see it as a combination of both abyss and charm. elenora wasn't weak after all, she should have some resistance to the charm but that was shut down by the reflected charm eyes of her

 

Reflected Demon eye power + Death Attribute Charm?

 

yeah, since charm is a given with her beeing a vampire and the description she gave hints heavily towards abyss

 

and that the charm doesn't work that well with vampires can be seen in the fact that even the servent vampire didn't seem to be affected and elenora is a noble born vampire, one step higher than them.

 

Well, it was mentioned during the orc arc that his charm had a harder time working on high leveled thinking monsters/people since they rely less on their instinct, kind of like how Ravovifard only made Van's group more aggresive. And since one could argue that 'Charm' skills are just a lesser 'Path Enticement' skill, it is not an all powerful skill that can work always on anyone, think the difference between ('alive') Isla and Eleonora, Isla was a debout believer in Hihi and her master (forgot all the vampires names) who only saw Van (walking ideal of Vida's beliefs) as a threat, while Eleonora, a relativelly recently transformed vampire, just followed her master because of his power. Of course, the already forming Abyss helped too.

And talking about the Abyss, we know for a fact that repeated action let one learn new skills. Before Van accidentally eated Book god's souls Van was always shown to 'return a 1000 fold' starting with the town at the start, so it maybe be that it just so happened to manifest as a 'gaze' specific counter.

Also it was said that Gudu killed to with similar skills to abyss, so maybe it implies that he can't deal with counter type skills? Is not like Van has been ever shown to fight against counter skills. Or maybe DA can't nullify itself?

 

I'm pretty sure I remembered reading somewhere that Van had reflected Eleanora's charm skill back onto her but despite looking around for it I can't find a useful quote. The best I could find was this:
https://lightnovelbastion.com/release.php?p=1111

This doesn't tell us why Van was unaffected by Eleanora though.

It's pretty clear at the time that Eleanora had been charmed one way or another. It was also pretty much confirmed that Van's Death Attribute Charm would affect vampires as it affected Bellmond. So Van's Death Attribute Charm should have affected Eleanora to some degree. On the other hand, if Van had possessed a weak form of Abyss at the time it would explain why Eleanora's charm failed and after all the scene is practically like a description of the Abyss skill. It's not a big deal though.

 

Except that Van's Abyss skill does not block and reflect visual abilities, it duplicates and returns them. The mistake is somewhat easy to make because of the Gubamon case being the first time after Van got the skill that we saw it in action, but even then he was still affected by the explosion from the demon eye. He just reduced the damage somehow (I think it was mentioned that his barriers were the cause of the reduced damage) to inconsequential levels and recovered quickly. However, in other cases like with Deathgaze and that semi-appraisal ability the one guy used on him, Van feels the full effects of the visual type skill and is only able to duplicate the same effect onto the user.

As for why he was unaffected by the charm skill, that was likely a combination between Van's abnormal effect resistance and his mental corruption Lv. 10 (the latter probably holding a more significant effect than the former.) Plus, who knows what influence his composite soul may have had on the effects of mind-affecting skills.

Again, this dose nothing to remove the fact that somehow Elenora was affected by charm. Van's death-attribute charm combined with the fact that he saved her life from her colleague (plus, as someone said here already, the fact that she was a relatively young vampire) serve as a good alternate explanation for why this may be, and I think people are far too easily forgetting and completely not factoring in the part about him saving her life and the influence that would have.

I think the alternate explanation there is sufficient enough to not need the un-formed abyss skill as an explanation, and as we covered here it does not explain why Van was unaffected because abyss does not block visual effects in the first place.