Limitless The Strongest Revenant

"I don't understand," I confessed feeling a bit stupid.

"My {fate} was ultimately borne from a desire to create an army. First, I only trusted myself. Thus, my theme as a Wraith was to multiply my combat abilities. But as I began fighting others, I noticed how limited my own abilities were. This realization guided the {Fates} I would create as a Phantom."

Hearing his explanation, it was similar to my idea of telling your {fate} what you want. The only difference was Carlos believed that he did it subconsciously.

"My Phantom ranked {fates} are {Leadership of the Street}, {Hierarchy of the Street} and {Loyalty of the Street}. The abilities they granted was to create clones of other people, buff the clones and to have the ability to evolve the Champions of my clones respectively."

"Let me guess, your theme was to use the clones of other people and empower them to the limit?"

"Yes, that is correct. After I reached my limit as a Phantom, the next problem I chose to solve was that if the real bodies are killed, the clones disappear. So, my first {fate} as a Specter allowed me to solve this by leveraging my domain."

"Why does it have to be with the domain though?"

"Hmm... before I answer that. Another thing I failed to mention, each time a Reaper ascends your entire {Fate} family changes. I am sure you have noticed this. It would be more pronounced among the Wraith ranked. {Fates}."

"Indeed. I have," I confirmed.

There were several times my {Fates} changed as I gained new ones. The most useful of all was {Save}. When I started {Save} was a specific coordinate in space. When I turned into a Phantom, I gained the ability to use {Save} on an object. Allowing me to {Save} on people or moving vehicles.

{Interpret} was similarly noticeable as originally, I could only hear, then I could read with it. Until finally I could converse. I am guessing a future upgrade would be to be able to write with any language. I actually grew excited at the prospect of all my {Fates} slowly getting upgrades.

"Right. A downside of the upgrades is the soul cost. As the growth of the amount of souls you can store in your soulgem is limited, Reapers should be wise on how they spend it. Wraiths and Phantoms increase this internal capacity greatly each time they get stronger. But Specters do not."

"So that means…what exactly?"

"While a Specter can draw soul energy from the air, unless you are always in a graveyard it is impossible to be able to siphon large amounts consistently. This is why domains are so valued. A Specter's domain turns the air inside the space into a soul battery allowing them to use unholy amounts of souls."

"I see. So, it's like an MP field in games. Skills cost less giving you a big advantage."

"Hmm. I am not familiar with what an MP field means but a domain basically gives you an unfair advantage in combat. It would be similar to fighting a mermaid in water versus on land."

"I see."

"Typically, the Domain follows you around once deployed. Thus, Specters always fight within an area that influences the battlefield to become more favorable to the said Specter. Typically, my 1st Specter ranked {Fate}, {Fractured Reality} deploys a Specter's Domain whenever it is invoked.

"If I ascend further my succeeding {Fates} will do so as well. I do not know what my theme for my Specter rank is at the moment. But for Specters themes are not that important. What is important however is a Domain's Ethos."

So, Domains was basically applying conditions that made combat easier, similar to a home court advantage. And as Domains followed the Reaper, it's like being able to bring your best game each time, every time. But what the hell was an Ethos?

["Ethos" refers to the characteristic spirit, beliefs, or values of a community, culture, or individual.]

'Thanks, Exa'

Carlos, then moved his hand back to his presentation and had it begin summoning mini Carloses.

"Herman and I are both summoners and are also both Specters. While our domains are fundamentally similar, our Ethos makes their applications vastly different. The main functions of our domains are to empower our Champions and set the cost of re-summoning them to zero."

"…"

Well fuck, just that first two abilities were already OP as fuck. No wonder we couldn't bleed these bastards out of troops no matter what the girls tried. Just having Domains made outlasting Specters like pouring sand in the ocean.

"Herman's Ethos is that his army will always be outnumbered. Mine on the other hand is that my army should finish their own battles. This manifested for both of us as different abilities.

"His Domain doubles, triples or quadruples their abilities depending on how many enemies outnumber his Champions. On the other hand, my Ethos causes each resummon of my clones to create a powerful shockwave that kills anything within my domain."

"Holy fuck…"

As much as I wanted to deny it Herman's Ethos fits his image of {Conquest} very well. Meanwhile the Inca warrior's Ethos was practically cheating on so many levels. Whenever he deployed his domain, it would nuke his opponents. Carlos would only need to deal with those that managed to survive if there were even any.

Just the Ethos alone already gave them a powerful edge. If you added the fact that they would buff the fuck out of their summons at zero cost, it was just too much. And that still was not yet including being able to have near infinite souls at their disposal.

From just this lesson, it became clear to me how wide the gap was between a Phantom and a Specter.

In all of my battles with Specters none of them deployed their domains. If they did, I could only imagine how terrible the outcome would have been. However, even ignoring Domains, not having to still rely on internal soul energy gave Specters a huge advantage.

"Finally, the third and best benefit…"

"There's still fucking more?" I gasped in disbelief.

"Why yes. The best benefit of Domains is that they stack. If you have a group of Specters fighting together, they will each receive the benefits of their domains at the cost of quickly draining the soul available."

"Then if both of you stacked your domains together…"

"Yes, we would get buffed when outnumbered and create large explosions each time we resummon our Champions."

"Fuck… How do you even fight that?"

If a typical Assault team comprised of eight Specters and all of them had Domains, how would it be even possible to kill them? It they had good synergy wouldn't they be on the level of a Revenant?

"Well technically you don't. Battles involving domains normally destroy the entire landscape, so Specters rarely come to blows. My own Domain is a very good example of such a grim scenario. But realistically using Domains gives Specters several days of malice at every use, so most use them sparingly.

"As not everyone has the luxury of getting multiple benevols, by the time a Reaper becomes a Specter, the malice they harbor would be already significant. This would already hinder the power that Specter can call upon. The ones on the Assault teams are in worse situations."

"I see."

But that logic didn't apply to me and Hellsend. Not just Benevols with the Awakened, it is possible to cleanse the Specters and get them back into the fight.

"Of course, most continents have their own combat doctrines about Domains. South American's usually have army boosting domains due to our style. There are numerous applications of even the same type of {Fates} as there are people."

Hearing what Carlos had to say, I grew ashamed of my simplistic thoughts about fighting Specters. Naturally I pieced together what the Inca warrior meant by rookie mistakes the Sirens and I did.

Domains and their Ethos were fucking as dangerous as {Fates}. Unless you knew what the Domain did it was dangerous to fight a Specter head on. The only silver lining would be if that as most Specters had malice tacked onto them, the more active ones wouldn't be so eager to use their domains. Discover exclusive content at My Virtual Library Empire

But I was pretty sure Specter on Specter warfare was a thing. I had to find out how to take down Specters now that I knew more about them. Fortunately, I found a teacher who could instruct me on just that.