As for the Dagger of Death, it had mixed-use to Darius. When he first acquired the dagger, its preciousness had been unmatched, for he could have used it to insta-kill someone greatly above his level and jump straight through the many stages to instantly reach the highest possible level... at least in theory.

At the time, he had been apprehensive of whatever failsafe Vena and Caesar had put in place, so he had not dared to act on his plans, rather slowly leveling himself up after he set up a social foundation in Listo.

Looking back, it had proven to be a wise choice borne from caution. Since it was now an established fact that he would be locked at the peak of his stage until he fulfilled whatever diabolical Quest the sadistic AI would come up with, not to mention his exp gain had been capped, the Dagger of Death had basically turned into a last resort item in case he needed to kill a big bad entity many levels above him.

So it still had some use, just not much since Darius wasn't so stupid to provoke those stronger than him.

For Thanatos, heh heh. With those three uses of the Dagger, some particularly annoying powerhouses were going to join his domain of death very soon…

A Stitch In Time was a lifesaving item of great value, perhaps even more so than the shard, able to rewind time from a point of life-threatening danger to a point right beforehand. It had pros and cons to Darius.

The pros were that with Darius' intelligence, rewinding time would give him many opportunities to turn things around. For example, before coming here he had planned to use all 9 charges in battling Marasmus and finding his weaknesses before developing a foolproof battle plan by the last or so charge.

Truly exciting, blood-boiling, and in line with Caesar's prediction!

However, upon being hit with many small revelations on the way up to here, Darius had decisively given up on that plan. He had thought deeply and had realized that he was falling down onto the wrong path.

From the very beginning - and it had been repeated many times - Darius had never been a fighter or some combat genius. All of his battle power stemmed from the Supreme System's mechanics.

The only thing he had that the system did not give him and could not easily take away from him were his skills in mercantilism! Darius was a merchant, a businessman of epic proportions!

Instead of trying to bash his target's skull in, why not sit down and barter? Given his Transmutation ability, and also his Luck in finding rare things, that perhaps only he could appraise, he might come to an accord with the opposite party...

If that all failed, then the bashing of skulls could always come into play as Plan B.

This was the mentality Darius had before offering to trade with Marasmus. Of course, he had merely planned to exchange information, in hopes of finding some weakness to kill Marasmus, but he had decisively given up upon it after receiving his answers.

This had led to here and now, to this pivotal choice.

One item for quick use of the stone, three items for shared ownership with this True Lord of Faust, and five items for full ownership. All Darius had to go on were assumptions and logical guesses on his part, so he wanted some more confirmation.

"God Emperor Thanatos, may I know-" Darius began once more, but was interrupted by the Titan God of Death.

"It is as you've surmised and slightly more. You will find out if you make the trade." Thanatos answered simply.

Darius was silenced by this. He would be foolish to trust the words of Thanatos so easily, but why would a Titan God need to waste his time bartering with him?

He could 10/10 times smash Darius into paste and take the things anyway. Once Darius considered that, he realized how silly he had been.

He was like a child selling lemonade in his yard being worried that the rich businessman in the porche would try to swindle him of his lemonade.

Immediately, Darius released a deep sigh and smiled. "Lord Titan, please accept these five items as a measly offering for your Resurrection Stone!"

Darius quickly took out the items in question and passed them over. They slowly floated up in front of Thanatos, who didn't even bother to look at them before tearing a portal beside the pedestal and tossing them in haphazardly.

Thanatos - in Marasmus' body - clapped his hands and formed a small bubble of grayish energy. He then pushed this bubble into Marasmus' chest and encapsulated the Resurrection Stone within.

When Thanatos brought his hand out, the First Resurrection Stone was floating within this bubble harmlessly, looking like nothing but a common item.

He passed the stone over to Darius, who received it with an excited expression. Finally, after 3 weeks of agony and worry over his future, he held the quest target in his hands!

The best thing was that he hadn't lost a single person on his side nor any real combat strength in doing so! He only had to do what he did best, trade with another person for what he wanted!

Thanatos seemed to still be around. "You made a very clever choice today, Darius Stone. Even I feel a little envy when thinking about what kind of benefits you will enjoy with the stone. You really are lucky I have little need for it myself. However, if I ever find that it leaves your hands to end up in any of my enemies, I will come after you relentlessly!"

Darius nodded at Thanatos' warning. He would never give away this item for anything. Darius had just Analyzed it, and what he had seen made him certain that he had made the best possible choice as well.

Darius slowly rose to his feet with Gunner, bowing once more. "If that is all, God Emperor Thanatos, I shall take my leave."

Thanatos chuckled. "We aren't done here yet, Young Fellow. We still have accounts to settle."

Darius' heart trembled as he raised his head with confusion. "My Lord?"

Thanatos stroked Marasmus' bony chin with a playful smile. "You've admitted to being the one who had issued this mission to barge in here and have those ants there try to kill the Stonekeeper. Due to the urgency of your own problem and given our nice little barter just now, I shall graciously overlook this offense against me."

All signs of amusement left Thanatos. "But what meaning was there in having them hunt down my various undead warriors? I could care less about the various Amateur and Journeymen undead, but these fellows have killed almost every Adept undead I had stationed here!"