Slightly before...
Whatever life the Demon had lived before, was of no consequence to the Soul of the Crystal Core. Or Dan as he used to be known when he was a human. Clearly these mages summoned him at random to kill him. Dan offered a brief high-speed prayer to the Demon's lost soul fragments as they were absorbed.
But then it was time to get to work.
What happened to the Demon? His soul got forcibly 'evicted' leaving an empty husk.
What was Dan? A soul that had integrated as the one and only consciousness of a giant floating crystal containing vast amounts of knowledge and ownerless sparkly fragments of other people's souls.
Almost before the Demon's body hit the floor Dan reached out. He desperately tried to form a connection with the body, stretching towards it, reaching, imagining him leaping into it.
Suddenly he succeeded, and information entered into his mind. As the Demon's body lay there Dan was becoming familiar with its motor functions Dan could 'see' from both his crystal core and the body on the ground. The demon's body that is.
He was able to see the big man saunter over. As Herk leaned over what was now Dan's laying form Dan forced himself to lie unmoving with an iron will.
“Yeah, baby! Herk Slayer of Demons!” the dagger plunged at 'Dan'.
And then Herk died. Herk had brought down a dagger, but Dan had stabbed with his own fingers. Piercing the jugular, and rendering Herk's throat a viscous wreck. But soon Herk started to be absorbed by the core.
'I must have pierced straight through to the brain stem?! How strong is this damn body?!'
After the light show ended, I couldn't help but marvel at how video game like what just happened was. Kill opponent, gain experience and power. I could feel the core sifting through the information in Herk's mind as it was added. Better go with 'video game like' instead of 'Borg like' for the sake of my sanity.
'Oh shit, there were like four others right?! They haven't moved tho...it probably only feels like they are moving slowly, because my Core is processing quicker than the situation is changing?'
It wasn't until I bounded to my feet and dashed at one of the remaining hooded figures that they started to react. This figure panicked and tried to pull out a dagger, without any skill he swung it awkwardly at my face. Untrained, and scared witless, I knew from other people's memories. Although I couldn't help but flinch back.
After this man, my other 'summoners' were the timid small woman who was casting the Soul crushing spell earlier, the Non-cleaning wannabe temptress, and an old man with a beard who I knew was the 'leader' of this group.
How did I know? The information from Herk's mind had been processed. It was just as greasy and unpleasant as the man himself. And infarct worse than I expected.
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I suppose I hadn't contemplated how much of a bastard this guy truly was. He had a history of criminal activities that ranged from petty theft to sadistic murder. Needless to say his last thoughts were of Noclean's 'attributes' and what he will do to them.
Anyway, the old man in the back was some kind of failure of an apprentice who hired these random newbie adventurers to help in this project. In other words, the old man had started this. Herk seemed to not be aware or caring if they violated any taboos or laws, but the secrecy of this project was necessary to them profiting properly from it. Of course, once complete Herk would look for opportunity to kill them all.
Processing speed is high spec as is the sensing of the of the surroundings without needing sight or sound. The old man was a bit faster with his staff and got off the incantation for the soul crushing blast faster than the girl could.
The blast hit Dan's new demon body, while he was flinching back from the clumsy swing of the other male. Panic rose inside of Dan's Core. His 'soul' now resided in the core, but at least part of it was attached to the 'demon body', no telling what would happen.
Dan regretted his instinct to flinch, intellectually there was no way such a cut could do anymore than superficial damage. His body went numb, which filled him with terror, yet the part of him in the core watched in shocked numbness. The body, fell to the floor once again.
The girls the old man and the knife wielding man sighed in relief and relaxed slightly. Only slightly, a the last Soul Bolt didn't work like it should have anyway but maybe the one fired from the more experienced old man might do better. Dan held his proverbial breath
Wait, was that...yes! Dan wanted to laugh at himself, as well as in the face of these 'adventurers'. The 'Soul Bolt' scattered the soul of its target, but the core instantly reabsorbed and reconstituted any excess soul energy. Especially quick was its ability to reconstitute soul energy already attuned with the core. Long story short: his 'Demon Body' was only stunned after such a one-hit-kill attack until the core reinserted its control 'line' back into the body.
Letting the body rest unmoving, the researchers gathered around it suspiciously. Having seen it get up once already, they were exceptionally cautious now. Dan chuckled dryly while a separate string of consciousness searched for a solution. 'So they can learn...'
“Did the newbie mess up? Is that why the Demon got back up?” Asked No clean.
“...No, impossible. A failed cast would fail to cast anything. If anything I'd guess the Demon's will was higher than a human's so it caught us off guard.” Said the old man.
“I'm sorry, about Herk...”
“...Hmm? Oh, yek! You didn't think I was going to actually going to sleep with him?” No Clean seemed to have standards at least, although Dan knew according to the memories he absorbed Herk wasn't the type to let a little thing like 'no' stop him. 'Eww and yek is right, I wonder if I should delete those memories?'
They weren't buying my second possum ploy, the old man and little girl were chanting a more destructive spells. Dan smirked to himself. He rolled again, causing No clean to shriek “I knew it!”
If they wanted to use long range attacks I'll use long range attacks. I lifted up the dagger that Herk had been wielding before. Abracadabra bibbipty bopity boo the sword went magically flying through the air into the old man's skull. With 'Magic'.
While the Number one threat was down, I think now would be a good time to finish what I started before.
Eyes locked with the man, he is freaked out even more. I don't want to run the risk of flinching again, so I decided to bulrush the poor SOB. Like a deer in the head lights he froze wide eye as I barreled down on him, I slammed my shoulder into his torso and lifted him into the wall.
Although normally this would only knock the wind out of a man, I figured something was different when I heard a deep rumbling cracking. Not the sound of bones cracking, but the sound of boulders shifting. Sure enough the wall of the dungeon had been shifted about and those half a tonne stones that made the wall had been flexed around the man. The twin streams of spirit energy and mind's experiences told me that I had just killed two men.
Three down, two to go.