“Sire Besonilase-” yelled a young demon dressed like a guard as he barged into the fourth tier warrior’s room. The demon’s words were cut off mid-sentence, however, as his eyes widened at the sight of the Ragah-Fiq fourth tier Defender, or to be specific, at his decapitated head in Esperanza’s hand, still dripping fresh blood from the stump of the neck as it was rather freshly severed.
Esperanza herself had assumed the guise of a human rogue once more. Now that she had greater control over her form thanks to [A Mask to Don]’s higher level, she could form something that resembled clothes over her “body”, though technically those “clothes” were part of her form all the same, just of different coloration and texture.
As such, the guise of a cloaked and hooded rogue was one of the easiest disguises for her to use, as it needed less detail, allowing her to hide the rest of her form underneath the “cloak” regardless of what shape she was assuming. The “cloak” around her then helpfully parted to allow one tentacular bladed limb to flash by and decapitate the young demon before he could raise the alarm, or at least, make it messier than it already was.
Her fight with the dead Ragah-Fiq warrior already did that aplenty.
Esperanza then took a moment to consider before she used [Consume] on the dead warrior’s corpse. That skill had been stuck at level 9 for a good while now, despite its rapid rise when she used it freely against the arachnoids back in the forest. Then again, she had refrained from using the skills on the higher level arachnoids since their bodies held valuable materials, so she hadn’t exactly fed the skill with many foes around her power level or higher.
Sure enough, that proved to be the trigger for the skill’s leveling and evolution as a notification flashed inside her mind.
Class Skill [Consume] Evolved into [Essence Devourer]
[Essense Devourer]
Epic Skill
Level 1
Nothing shall escape your gaping maw, o Devourer, not even the mind, the soul, or the very essence of life, lest you show mercy to them.
Allows the user to consume everything that composes the target and absorb them for a bonus in experience and a temporary boost of power. User may selectively consume the body, mind, soul, and even the existence of any dead body within reach. *Cannot consume more than the body of a target greater than the user in level. Gains memories of the target should the target’s Mind be consumed. Gains a boost in skill level to any compatible skill should the target’s Soul be consumed. Target will forever cease to exist should its existence be consumed.* Level 1: Cooldown: 24 hours. Boost: 25% of the consumed target’s major stats. Boost Duration: 1 minute.
“Huh,” noted Esperanza as she read through the description of the evolved skill.
The skill previously didn’t have a cooldown, and she could use it at will as long as there was a corpse in the vicinity. On the other hand, while the boost duration stayed the same, the effect was massively increased. The most she ever got out of [Consume] was a couple points of the sub-stats at best. The new skill turned that into a much bigger boost, though usable more rarely.
More interesting were the effects of consuming other things than just the body of her target. She had a way to interrogate people effectively thanks to her ability to capture rather than manifest their souls, but directly reading someone’s memory would be even more efficient for that purpose. The skill level boost was also tempting, though it brought with it the implication that the soul in question would be scattered and sent back to the cycle instead of being caught.
But what interested her the most was the ability to directly devour the existence of another.
Esperanza briefly wondered if the skill would work against one of the [Heroes] or [Champions], but then she considered how [Respawn] seemed to be of higher rank than her skill, so doubted that it’d work that way. That said, maybe with a couple more evolutions the skill might just give her exactly such an option, some way to permanently remove pieces off the board.
Maybe some way to touch those new gods themselves, for that matter.
In the end, she temporarily shelved her thoughts as she heard more hurried footsteps climbing up the stairs of the keep. More of the guards had clearly arrived to check out the commotion she caused, so Esperanza decided to make an even bigger commotion to help draw attention from the attack that was likely arriving soon from the rest of her group.
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She had already sent a signal to Dali and Gordy when she reached the fourth tier’s chamber, so Ani and the rest had likely moved to silence the demons who were out patrolling while she fought. After a quick check of the room to save up anything that might be of use, Esperanza toppled over the oil lamp that kept the room illuminated, and soon other things in the room caught on fire, fire that was spreading towards the keep’s wooden roof.
Esperanza herself calmly walked out of the room like she had nothing to do with the conflagration that roared to life behind her.
A group of maybe ten demons in the armor worn by the guards in the center accosted her shortly after she left the room, Esperanza herself still in disguise, pretending to be some sort of human rogue. She immediately struck out before they could react to her presence. Two long, tentacular limbs that had been narrowed down to the width of a rope served as her “weapons”, one ending in a bone blade she fashioned to look like a crescent dagger to match the dagger she held with the other limb.
That way, should any outside observer survive her rampage, they would only see a possibly human rogue who was using a pair of daggers attached to long ropes, instead of the eldritch abomination that she actually was.
Five of the guards lost their heads or had their throats slit before the rest managed to gather their wits about them. Not that it mattered much. The demon guards were mostly late second to early third tier in levels, so none of them could hold a candle against Esperanza, who had capabilities to match a fourth tier in combat.
Her daggers struck from impossible angles, facilitated by the fact that the “ropes” that held them weren’t ropes at all but were actually her limbs, which she could freely control. Esperanza’s main body never moved a step from where she was, only the daggers danced at the end of the ropes, as if it was some sort of display of confidence or arrogance.
Even when the guards fought back, all that did was to buy them a few more seconds to breathe, and no more.
As Esperanza went down the staircase of the keep – the guards that accosted her left behind as corpses – the fire she started had spread through half of the third floor, and she could hear a louder commotion from outside. The sounds she heard didn’t seem to indicate any attack, so it was likely caused by the fire she started.
That was good. If the demons were busy with the fire, Ani’s surprise attack would be more likely to leave no survivors.
More demon guards had arrived on the second floor of the keep and were instantly cautious when they noticed Esperanza descending down the stairs. The moment she flung her blades out, the demons also fought back, even though their resistance was little more than a futile gesture at best. Esperanza wouldn’t have even bothered to use [Soul Armament] if it wasn’t to level the skill, given the power – or lack thereof – of the opponents she was facing.
As a result though, the demons thought that there was some sort of deadly poison coating her blades, as some demons keeled over and died despite only taking a wound that shouldn’t have been lethal at all. None of the guards present seemed to be good at noticing things related to the soul, and when a priest did show up, Esperanza beheaded them before they could do anything.
Naturally there was no way to hide the noise from the fighting, and some of the demon guards escaped to report her presence and call for more guards, something she allowed to happen on purpose. She could have stopped the runners, but she figured that with the commotion she already made, might as well go further. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
By the time she reached the first floor of the keep, there was a semi-circle of demons in guard armor pointing spears and arrows towards the staircase, clearly alarmed since they heard the sound of the fighting on the upper levels. Like before, none of the demons posed any real threat to Esperanza. She just walked towards them while projecting confidence.
Dozens of arrows were loosed at the same time towards her, but she made use of her amorphous body to easily slip through the gaps, moving so fast that the demons would only see that she had somehow avoided every single one of their shots and came out unscathed. The realization definitely caused some of the demon guards to pale in fright, as they realized that anyone capable of pulling off that sort of feat was likely someone way above their paygrade.
Then her daggers lashed out and half a dozen of the nearest spear-wielding demons fell to their knees while clutching their bleeding throats all at the same time.
Esperanza wasn’t sure if it was one of the archers or one of the spearwielders that ran first, but the guards around her started to break up their formation in their attempt to escape from her. Some others stubbornly tried to resist and were rewarded with swift deaths, which only further frightened the rest of them. Some of the demons even pushed others aside in their desperation to escape the avatar of death walking towards them.
She guessed that the sight of someone who was clearly way more powerful than they were, walking slowly and confidently towards them while casually dispatching anyone who tried to resist must have been quite frightening indeed for these guards. That, and the side effect from [Far Down The Deep End] also affected them.
Since Esperanza no longer had absurdly disproportionate Soul and Sanity values for someone of her level – it was still very high, but not as relatively high compared to others unlike when she was still level 1 – the effect wasn’t that much stronger compared to back at the temple. Some weaker second tier demons dropped on the spot and likely died soon after, but the most notable effect on the others was how it seemed to amplify their emotions.
In this case, the fear and dread that her presence brought them.
Esperanza eventually walked out of the keep after killing at least a hundred or so of the demon guards, with other surviving guards running away or calling for help. The Supply Center was alert by that point, but it was an alert stature that guarded against her, inside the Center itself. As a result they were temporarily lax on security towards the outside.
Which was why when the rest of the group struck, nobody noticed until a body happened to fall from the walkways near a very surprised demon below.
Esperanza had done her job and kept the base occupied with her presence, allowing Ani and the rest of the group to take care of the demons patrolling as well as the sentries on the base’s walls and watchtowers mostly unnoticed. By the time the demons inside noticed that there were other attackers from the outside, it was already far, far too late for them.
All that awaited them was a merciless slaughter that left no survivors.