The pupils of black and gold color watched numerous people moving about from the safety of a lush thicket. The black hair mixing with strands of muddy and gold, Frei saw his image in the reflection on a huge, wet leaf of the vegetation around him and paused. The souls had to affect his body as well, he had definitely not looked like this before, but it was a breath of fresh air.

"I do look better and better." He ran his hand through his hair slowly and concluded admiring himself.

But before that he rubbed the leaf and used the wet moisture on it as hair gel.

Ah, that was even better. It was nothing more than a healthy self-respect, right?

  He coughed lightly and turned his attention back to the town he had been observing for quite some time, as the situation inside proved to be quite intriguing. Based on his observations, he understood it like this.

  There were Broad Shoulders, he named them such because, who would have guessed, they had a peculiar bodily feature of having broader shoulders compared to ordinary humans. Broad Shoulders carried themselves like they owned the place and deducing from all the interactions, it was probably the case. He speculated that they were the intruders and might have different soul affinity, but he was too far to see it for sure.

  The second group were Cat Ears and Fluffy Tails, where Cat Ears had animal-like ears and Fluffy Tails had even a tail in addition to that. Then, there were some nasty animals reminding him of all kinds of depictions of alien animals from the Earth's horror movies, he decided to call them simply Aliens, they seemed to be Broad Shoulders' pets. They used them with gusto to scare Cat Ears and Fluffy Tails into submission, or just for the fun of it.

"A classic fascist society." If Frei remembered right, something similar could be seen during the times of Sparta, Rome and many other cultures, where the conquered race was turned into a caste of slaves with some minor differences here and there. Some were more civil about it and some were not. It could be seen even in modern societies. Who were workers that worked in inhuman conditions if not slaves? Calling them employees did not change shit.

Frei had to cool down his head a bit, as he was not really a fan of the practice and had been too worked up about it in an instant. At least now he knew something that soothed his anger.

"Hell really do want you my dear visitors from beyond." He smiled, while trying to remember the rough layout of the town for later.

  The major problem was that he did not know if his different origin would be recognized by others, he decided to test it on some isolated individual. Conveniently, one of the Broad Shoulders was just leaving the town in his direction, accompanied just by two Fluffy Tails. He noticed that most of the beast people were females, probably because many of the males had been killed in the war. One of the Aliens followed their group as well.

"Based on the way they eat, their muscles should be ordinary, nothing superhuman there." Frei followed the Alien with his eyes, remembering all the data he had gathered about the species.

"Sharp claws, might be poisoned, but that should not be a problem for me. Their reactions are quicker than mine, well, you can try and dodge [Black Bullet] then." He began tailing the group from afar.

"Hey, Lazarus! What are you doing here in the forest? Perhaps, you have obtained some fine articles as of late?" Frei heard a powerful voice and realized that the Broad Shoulder he had been following met another of his kind, who was naturally not alone either.

"Nah, this one is subpar, but we can have some laughs even then!" The newcomer took out a rod and it extended into a spear in an instant. He made a swift motion with his hand, cutting down a young tree, then proceeded to make a few logs out of its trunk.

"What is that ass doing?" Frei mumbled under his breath, not being the wiser about the intruder's action.

"That is the right size, come closer!" He gestured with his hand imperatively and one of the Fluffy Tails made a small step forward.

"Not you, the ugly one!" He shouted and the ears of all beast people present quivered. Another one came closer and the intruder grabbed her tail and tied it tight to one of the logs.

"Now return to the town like this! If you can't make it until dawn, Bessy here will bite your ugly tail off." Another Alien beast lifted its head and barked when it heard its name.

The female started walking back towards the town, but was struggling for every inch, as the log was too heavy to pull with her tail. It was clear she was hurting, her face distorted with pain.

"I have seen enough." Frei pointed his finger and black light emerged out of it, hitting the poor creature right into her forehead, ending her suffering. She fell to the ground and Frei could see her pure, white soul leaving her body. He might have aimed at the torturer, but he had a hunch that he was still out of his league.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"That is that, you go to heaven and I . . ." His mouth remained hanging open, when he saw one of the Broad Shoulders extending his palm and sucking the white ball of light into it.

Blood boiled in his veins, anger rising from the depth of his being. It was a different feeling than usual, the act before him seemingly violating something on a primal level inside of him. If felt like the anger was not just his own.

  Still, he had to preserve his existence to face scum like the one in front of him. These two were no simple thugs and were two on one, if he did not count the Aliens. Frei transformed and ran away in the direction of the mine, as that was the only path he had some information about. Soon, a spear flew past his ear, but he expected ranged attacks and was able to dodge it in time.

"Eat my ass destroyer here." He glanced back and pierced one of the Aliens with [Rock Spike], the other Alien instinctively pulled his tail in between his legs. Honestly, it was not good news that the Aliens were not that strong, it meant that the main battle power lied elsewhere.

"Damn, I am not losing them." Frei almost flew through the forest, his speed enhanced by both his form and strength, but the Broad Shoulders were still behind him. He sought something to help him in his dire situation, as he had only about two minutes left before [Demonic Transformation] expired. Instead of something helpful, he found out that the mission objective updated.

[Mission objective] - You have witnessed a sacrilege, kill the heretic to complete your mission.

"Great, that is surely helpful." Frei's brain stalled for a second, when a beam of bright blue light cut through his left arm, making a large hole in his forearm. It had burned through like ihis arm was just a piece of paper. He could barely see the objective changing again, his vision turning dizzy.

[Mission objective] - You have witnessed a sacrilege, kill the heretic to complete your mission. Your rank is not high enough for the mission, reinforcements will be assigned shortly.

"Shortly?! I need them like fucking right now!!" Feeling a smelly breath behind him, he turned right in time to stuff his left hand into the Alien's maw and he felt another wave of pain, when the jaws closed around his hand. However, he had the last laugh when he pushed the forefinger of his right hand through the Alien's eye, initiating an intimate conversation between his claw and the creature's brain.

Bah, his claw won the argument!

The beast fell to the ground, It would surely not stand up again. He expected to taste one of the intruders' souls, but was disappointed when nothing came out.

Was the creature soulless, or a construct?

  He had no time to think about it, as the two were upon him. In seconds, he lost his other arm and his body had been mangled like in a meat grinder, he could not even see his opponents' attacks because of how fast they were. He would have been dead three times over if not for his abilities and the transformation. Right when he thought that it was the end, a flash of bright light appeared at his right side and all three combatants looked at the figure that appeared instantly on the site.

"What?! Helping a demon with a sacrilege mission?" The one who arrived was as surprised as them. He was a tall male with golden hair and pristine white wings on his back. He wore golden armor with stripes of white cloth everywhere and held a sword made of light in his right hand. The next word he said was probably more of a name of an ability than anything else.

"Godspeed."

At that moment, the angel disappeared and the next second it appeared was behind one of the stupefied intruders that could ponder about the unusual positions of their heads that were falling to the ground, decapitated in an instant.

"You can have the trash." The angel uttered and vanished as quickly as he appeared, taking with him all the white souls that the duo possessed.

  Frei fell to his knees, the air wheezing through his damaged windpipe. He devoured all the souls the angel left behind, more subconsciously than intentionally, hoping that the action would have some healing effect.

It had not.

In under a minute his [Demonic Transformation] would end, he did not expect to live after that. Absent minded, he looked at the souls he had gotten.

[Souls] - 2 affinity-arcane 92 affinity-lithoid 44 affinity-plant 195 affinity-none (borrowed 20)

Using the last ounce of his strength, he bought the [Growth] ability and activated it. He had no clue what the ability was about, but he had faith that in the last seconds of his existence, it would make a crucial difference.

Well, in turned out that it did not. He could feel it doing something, but that something was quite short of what he needed at the moment.

Despite that, he still opened his eyes and saw a cow. It chewed slowly and Frei wondered how was its jaw still not unhinged.

"What is a cow doing in my afterlife?! Fuck off!" He frowned at the cow, but it paid him little attention.

"Huh, bad luck as well, eh?" A voice next to him asked.

  Frei turned his head and saw a person with black and white hair, the whole persona was giving off the feeling of a badger somehow. He was sitting in the grass among the cows, looking at the blue sky.

"Still, this setup is strange. I know that it is supposed to be soothing, but why cows?" He licked his nose with an unnaturally long tongue.

"I guess it is time to go back to the guild, but dying still sucks." He added and turned into shimmering lights shortly after, leaving Frei alone again. He knew what had probably happened and opened his interface.

[Infernopedia]

[Teleportation] - [Adventurers' Guild]

[Souls] - 1 affinity-arcane 46 affinity-lithoid 22 affinity-plant 77 affinity-none

"Fine, the Adventurers' Guild it is." It was time to meet his fellow brethren