William

This tastes amazing. The warm and gentle energy that is flowing into my core is just amazing. Why did I wait so long before eating a core? I could really get hooked on this. But the important question is how much did it strengthen my life force? I really should learn how to calculate it. But that is a problem for later, now I want to hunt more.

I guess the best way to find more prey would be by using that gorilla's corpse as a bait. Let’s do that. I climb into a tree and place a weak barrier around me in order to hide my presence. Well, since I have nothing better to do, let’s start with analyzing the way to calculate my life force. After waiting for almost an hour a pack of wolves finally shows up. I can see five of them approaching from the east.

“Well, let’s take care of them”

I release my barrier and jump down from my hiding spot.

“Claw.” The miasma covers my right arm and the air heats up around me.

As the wolves notice me they start growling at me and reveal their fangs. These wolves look the same as those from earth so it should be no problem. Let’s do this, I start rushing at the wolf closest to me. As I get close he jumps back, opens his mouth and shouts an air blade at me.

“wait wha...”

The air blade hits my left arm, cleanly cutting it off. I don't even have time to scream as four other air blades cut off different pieces of my body. In total I have lost a leg, an arm, I have two big cuts in my back and one in my side.

 I inhale deeply in order to not let out a scream.  My wounds get quickly healed but it still hurts like hell. I really underestimated them, I can't forget that this is not earth. I need to be more cautious, if any of those blades had hit my soul core, I would have been a goner. Now let’s do this.

“Barrier.”

I make a long hallway with my barrier trapping one of the wolfs together with me in it.

“Just you and me bud.”

I start running towards the wolf and he again shoots an air blade towards me, but this time, I am prepared and block it with my right arm. The wolf does not waste any time and fires another air blade at me before dashing towards me. I dodge the air blade and stick my right hand out. The wolf bites in it and almost immediately jumps back and lets out a meek cry.

“Like the taste?”

The poor wolf jaw has almost been completely devoured and the miasma is spreading to his brain. After a few seconds, he drops down dead after releasing a heart-piercing cry for help.

Well these other wolfs sure have been busy, my barrier has almost been destroyed by their repeated air blade attacks. Now to deal with them.

The wolves, to my great surprise, don't immediately attack me, it seems they learned that I am to be feared. I would sure love some long or mid ranged attacks, wait I got an idea. I pick up some small stones and grab them tightly and clad them in miasma before throwing them at one of the wolfs. The wolf tries to dodge them, but his efforts are futile as one of the stones hits his side. The miasma immediately spreads and starts to devour the wolf.

The other wolves immediately react after my attack and fire some more air blades at me. I form some small barriers to stop them and dash towards one of the other wolves. But suddenly a white flash bashes into me and I get thrown into a nearby tree. I stand up, spit out some blood and can see a white wolf that is almost five meters big, looking fiercely at me. The other wolves have already run away. This wolf is most likely the alpha of their kind.

“Is your name by any chance Sif and if so, where is your sword?”

The wolf looks at me and lets out a fierce roar and forms an aura of air around himself. If this was a game the boss' health bar would show up right about now. But let's do this, I run towards the wolf and try to punch him, he dodges and impales me with his giant teeth, this attack would kill any normal human, too bad I am not. As I am being used as a chew toy, I punch him right on his snout. The punch itself almost completely destroys it, but the miasma can't spread. I think the air aura around him keeps it from doing that.

He throws me away and howls from the pain. I am barely able to stand up, it seems like I will need to try that.

“Armor of the Devourer.”

The miasma starts spreading from my hand to my entire body and head. I did not want to use it since this Art is far from being completed, but I have no other choice. I only have one shot at what I am about to do.

I grab some stones, clad them in miasma and start running towards him. He shots a volley of air blades at me which just get blocked by my armor, but the shock slows me down nonetheless.  I throw the stones in the air and jump between his paws. As he dodges the stones I am able to grab both his front paws.

“Freeze.”

I dispel my armor and claw and steal the heat from the wolf in order to do so, freezing both his paws in the process. Then I just punch them and they shatter. The wolf falls down and looks at me, fear filling his eyes. I place my hand on his head and form my claw and armor again.

“Burn to cinders”

I focus all the heat, that gets created in the process, on his head. His head immediately gets engulfed in flames and even starts melting, a real disgusting thing to see.

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I fall down on the ground and can feel all of my strength leaving my body.

“Hahaha, I did it! I killed him.”

With the last of my strength, I use my claw to pull out his heart and extract the core from it. This core is a lot bigger and even has a tint of orange in it. I wonder if there is some sort of the color ranking is for these cores? I guess I will just have to find out myself.

I consume the core and the energy that gets added to my life force is many times greater than that of the gorilla. And it also replenishes my what normal mages would call their mana pool, well in my case it is filled with death energy. This is also what I use in order to use death Arts.

I gather the cores of the two wolves that I have killed. These cores are big and blue but don't have any orange in it this time. I decide to keep them as an emergency energy replenishment for when need to engage in prolonged combat.

I crawl inside a tree, place a barrier around me and almost collapse from the strain that simple spell places on my body. I guess that if I had not consumed the core of the big wolf I would not even have been able to cast that spell.

“Today was a productive day.”

“Who could have done something like that?” -???

I wake up after hearing some loud voices. As I open my eyes, I get blinded by the sun and after a few seconds, I can see three human kids standing around the corpse of the big wolf.

“Let’s leave this is scary.” - little girl

“You are such a scaredy-cat, Anita. Just wait until Tom has gathered the adults.” - older boy

“But Jill, that is Big White, who could have done that?” - Anita

“Maybe a brave hero decided to help our village by getting rid of it!” - Jill

I really should try to leave but I can't let these kids find out about me if the older people actually believe them this could turn into a witch hunt. After a few minutes, I can hear the sound of a big group of people closing in.

“Kids! Quickly! Return to the village.” - old male

“This can't be real. These kids did not lie, Big White really got killed, this is the best news we have had in years.” - Adult male 1

“Don't be happy to quickly, look at how he died. Two legs got frozen off, his head got burned and his corps is corroding from the inside out by this black goo.” - old male

Shit, it seems like I forgot to retrieve the bit of miasma that got split off when I grabbed his core. And of course, it had to be too little to completely devour the corpse.

“Elder, what do you mean?”  - Adult male 2

“This is most likely the work of an even more dangerous beast, the beast that did this is most likely a hydra. And no ordinary hydra, but one that can use fire, water and poison, so that means it is at least a three-headed hydra, most likely a five headed one. If such a creature finds our village we will be doomed.” - Elder (=old male)

“What should we do?”-Adult male 1

“Sent a request for extermination to the adventurers  guild of an at least three hydra and at most a five headed one. Don't forget to mention that no one has seen the beast but only its victim and mention the conditions of his death.” -Elder

Oh, there is an adventures guild in this world, well seems like I will be getting guests soon enough.

“How can you be so sure it is at most a five headed one?” - Adult male 1

“Simple, if it was a six or more headed one then it would not even bother with a beast at the level of Great White.” -Elder

“Elder, what should we do with the corpse?” - Adult male 2

“Just leave it, I will make a magic imprint of it so that we can add that with the job request to give the adventures a better idea of what they are dealing with. Tell all the villagers that this area is now off limit and do in no case touch that black goo.”

Wait he is going to use magic, I thought only nobles were allowed to use it, is that rule  different in this part of the Daemon Empire or did I already leave the Empire?

I would like to ask it, but I can't really just jump out of this tree and ask where I am. Especially not with clothes like these, I mean they got completely shredded to pieces and soaked with blood during that fight. Also, I don't have an eye patch with me to cover my crimson eye up.

Ah...it seems like they are finally leaving. I guess I should go and check up on those sisters. I hope they haven't burned the house down or something like that.