The Shepherds Are Dense

Chapter 138. Rare Trait: Shadow Avatar

The Crescent Ritual’s drop rate was high, but high?Was it because Aiwass’s score was massive and he achieved special victory conditions, maxing out his rewards?

He recognized all three traits.

Challenger’s Courage mirrored the Holy Lance’s trait, exempting fear and intimidation effects from higher-tier enemies, ignoring priority-based control resistance.

Useful in theory, but practically the least valuable.

In this world, control immunity was inferior to control removal. All resistances could be pierced by same-tier effects.

Like the “strongest spear vs. strongest shield,” the spear always won at equal priority—same-tier transcendent skills affected each other without reduction or immunity.

This trait only worked against higher-tier enemies’ fear effects, not same- or lower-tier ones, nor environmental fears, like those from ritual fields.

Other resistances targeted environments, but unless you were a lone wolf without allies, removal was better.

Many spells, once cast, were independent of the caster.

A tough curse wasn’t tied to the caster’s tier but its own strength. Tier-based immunity was calculated at casting.

Seals, bindings, freezes, or petrifications worked similarly—unless sustained, they were just effects post-cast.

Aspervaton’s petrification gaze, a standard mechanic even at level 70 in ’s version 3.4, showed why immunity paled against removal.

Unlike weaker petrification rays or eyes requiring eye contact, his gaze was instant, with no wind-up, cast time, or projectile.

In-game, it triggered every 5% health loss; the counter was for non-tanks to stay behind him, with Devotion Path players instantly removing it.

Petrified players couldn’t be revived in combat, and damage reduced maximum health, a debuff cleared only by death.

A distracted or petrified healer failing to free the tank, followed by a heavy hit, could wipe the team. Even if survived, the tank became fragile.

As an ancient giant predating professions, Aspervaton drew from multiple Paths, his petrification a Twilight Path talent.

Silent Revenant, nicknamed “Zombie” by players, seemed Twilight-like but was a Transcendence Path exclusive.

A god-tier skill in-game, it revived players at full health in a “Silent Revenant” state, treated as undead, clearing external effects and gaining “Transcending Death” resistance against most controls.

But it was a pseudo-revival. Health decayed rapidly, vulnerable to anti-undead spells like or .

Without healing, revived players lasted seven to eight seconds; with healing, maybe a dozen more before becoming unhealable.

In PVE, those seconds could clinch a 1% or 0.5% boss kill. In PVP, demon-possessed favored it.

Demon Scholars, fragile casters, often died again post-revival.

But demon-possessed, with their profession’s trait of massive health recovery at low health, entered a blood-draining demonized state where most abilities shone.

Revived in this state, they kept demonization.

Effectively, they had three lives—the third in full mode.

A revived demon-possessed could stun opponents, forcing a dilemma: ignore them, and their rapid decay paired with demonization’s output was deadly; kill them again, and it wasted time.

“Transcending Death” resisted controls, and their melee tankiness outstripped Demon Scholars.

The trait’s value was in forcing hesitation—opponents froze, while prepared demon-possessed unleashed full combos.

In reality, its short revival was mostly for mutual destruction, as natives didn’t know the trait, amplifying surprise.

Other revival methods existed but were flawed: Twilight’s Memory Keepers transferred partial memories into infants, not true souls; Amber Crafters made lich-like phylacteries for specific vessels; Necromancers raised obedient undead stripped of Path affinity.

Devotion’s high-tier ritual allowed a one-for-one life swap if the soul was intact, sacrificing the caster’s body. Transcendence rituals were chaotic.

Combat revival spells, common in-game, didn’t exist in-story, especially early on, as dead NPCs stayed dead.

The first two traits were situational, but Aiwass targeted the third:

Shadow Avatar (Purple):

Like , it combined lower-tier traits, specializing in one attribute for stronger effects.

It granted one level each of Shadow Affinity and Darkness Vessel. With at least one Darkness Vessel level, a ritual could shift it to two Shadow Affinity levels; with one Shadow Affinity, it could become two Darkness Vessel levels.

Adjustable during Crescent or Full Moon phases, it patched weaknesses.

For players, it saved respec points; for Aiwass, without respec items, it prevented trait waste.

It raised his Shadow Affinity to two and added one Darkness Vessel, easing shadow demon use and enabling .

Next ritual, a Darkness Affinity or Vessel trait could push Shadow Affinity to three, freeing him from his “wheelchair” (reliance on specific conditions).

Ideally, a Darkness Vessel trait would maximize it.

If his shadow demon became a high-ranking demon sealed in a card, he’d need no affinity, shifting to Vessel for mana.

For tough fights needing demon specialization, he could ritualistically revert to Affinity to boost combat.

Though purple, its flexibility equated to four basic trait levels.