Chapter 4: Mephistopheles’ skill
“This is definitely a bad idea… But I somehow like it.”
System Probability of Host’s death: above 60%.
“I take it back, stop what you’re doing right now!”
“WE’RE DEAD IF WE STAY HERE WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING!”
Mephis didn’t respond. No matter how much he disliked Lucifer’s idea, what he said was also true. Though they had no idea that they had already been found out by those two monsters, he knew that if either of them was to kill its enemy and found their whereabouts, they would die the next moment.
Creating the short bow through {Mana Creation} reduced Lucifer’s mana pool by quite a considerable amount, however, his choices were limited.
Mana started to gather in his other free hand and took the shape of an arrow. This time, the mana required was clearly less than for the short bow, this made him sigh of relief. {Mana Creation} had a consumption which scaled with the object’s size. This was a good news for him, he couldn’t afford to use 30 mana for an arrow.
Having finished his preparations, Lucifer started running around those two beasts. His steps were far from being concealed and his actions were easily spotted by the two monsters, but neither of them moved.
Lucifer ran until he was behind the azure snake and took a shooting stance. His eyes focused on his target, he aimed at it.
Perception was a stat which improved one’s kinetic vision, resistance against illusions, acute vision, and accuracy. It could also influence one’s sixth sense by making it sharper.
In normal circumstances, his 25 worth of perceptions wouldn’t be anyway near enough if he wanted to shoot down either one of those monsters. However, they didn’t seem to want to move as they were facing each other, so this situation couldn’t be more favorable for him.
After calming his heartbeat, he slowly remembered what his father taught him.
A firm grasp of the bow, steady hands, enshrined on the ground, arrow’s tip slightly under the target… And let go.
A piercing sound was heard.
The azure snake was surprised. The silver crystal wolf was surprised. Both of them had the same. This frail-looking kid dared to attack.
Thinking that the arrow was aimed at him, the azure snake hardened his skin, bracing himself for the impact. However, when he saw the arrow go past him, a hint of surprise passed through his eyes, before it was replaced by a vicious light.
The arrow was aimed at the silver crystal wolf’s bloody eye socket.
Feeling the incoming arrow, the silver crystal wolf’s body trembled slightly before it moved its head to the side to avoid it. It could have easily deflected it, but it was caught off-guard so it could only avoid. However, being distracted for few seconds by this arrow was its mistake.
In a flash, the azure snake appeared next to him and bit his neck with all its might.
The silver crystal wolf let out a cry of agony. It angrily stared at Lucifer as if wanting to eat him alive with its glare. The wolf opened its jaw and a ball of light flew out from it, aiming at Lucifer.
Shit!
Before Lucifer could even move, the ball of light was already near him.
At that moment, his eyes shifted, the blue one became red while the red one became blue, and the cross on his forehead inverted itself. Mephistopheles had taken control of the body.
“{Rift}!”
A small space crack appeared and collided with the white ball. However, as the space crack only lasted for one second it only reduced the power of the white ball before it impacted with Lucifer’s body.
Mephistopheles let out a pained cry as he was blasted away due to the impact.
His Devil of Chaos granted him a skill, {Rift}, which could create small space crack that disturbed their surroundings. They could be used either offensively or defensively. However, in order to maintain them, he needed a 100 mana for each second, this was restricting since their mana pool wasn’t that large.
The eyes colors shifted again and the cross regained its original form.
“AAAhhh!”
Feeling the scorching pain all over his body, Lucifer greeted his teeth while letting out another cry.
His vision was blurry, and his body was not responding as he wished.
System Host’s body in a dangerous state. Recovery needed. Please use your devil’s power to do so.
Seeing this, Lucifer didn’t even think twice about it, and before even a breath of time passed, his body was covered in a black mist.
A very pleasant and warm feeling invaded his body. Bit by bit, he could feel his body healing. The few bones which had been broken by the blast reattached themselves, the chaotic bloodstream in his body calmed down, and his ragged breathing slowly regained its normality.
System Host’s body stable again. It is highly recommended to stop the recovery process.
System Warning! Devil’s power reached a critical amount!
In a flash the black mist completely disappeared, leaving a sweating Lucifer with his eyes fixed on the blue screens as if he had seen a dancing goblin’s ghost.
Holy shit! I only have 20 left! I nearly died there!
The healing process felt so good that he had forgotten about the fact that his soul would crumble if he ever ran out of devil’s power.
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As Lucifer was trying regaining his calm, a huge figure slowly approached him, until it stopped only a few meters in front of his, staring at Lucifer with its eyes.
Oh shit! I forgot about you!
Remembering that there was a beast left, Lucifer’s heartbeat started to accelerate once again.
“I-I...”
Lucifer tried to speak but couldn’t say any more.
“You smell like one of our kin… What are you kid?”
The wounded and bleeding azure snake stared at him with a cold glare, ready to attack him if Lucifer was to move in a suspicious manner.
“I… I don’t know…”
“How? Don’t you know your race?”
“My bloodline is… a bit special… I only know that I’m 5% dragon…”
Hearing Lucifer’s words, the azure snake hissed before getting close to Lucifer again.
Smelling the strong scent of blood coming from the azure snake, Lucifer’s mind turned a bit dizzy.
System Skill learned. {Blood Domain}
Blood Domain Grade 10 The blood of those you killed an area of twenty meters from you will empower you. +5% to all your stats per liters of blood, -10% mana required to manipulate blood.
Lucifer had no time to enjoy this news, a huge snake was ten centimeters away from his face and could eat him alive at any time.
“Dragon huh… So that was that… It seems you don’t have the usual dragon bloodline too… Speak!”
“Ye-yes! I have a dragon king bloodline…”
“You…”
The azure snake was dumbstruck. It looked at Lucifer while thinking of something before it spoke to him once more.
“Kid, as you helped me before, I won’t treat you badly. Come with me.”
The azure snake raised its head, before turning away, seemingly anxious to depart.
Lucifer swallowed his saliva after a huge effort. He got up on his feet and slowly walked toward the azure snake.
At this moment something entered his line of sight.
“Hum, please wait a moment mister!”
Lucifer went toward a humongous tree which had little rosy leaves and started to climb it.
Looking at the little boy using its tiny hands and feet to climb such a huge tree made the azure snake chuckle.
When Lucifer finally reached a decent height, his body was covered in light wounds it didn’t bother him. He carefully selected a tree branch before going on it. Mana started to condense in his hand and took the shape of a little ax before he swung it down at the branch.
His {Mana Creation} skill being still low grade, couldn’t be used to form powerful weapons, thus it took a bit of time before Lucifer finally managed to cut down the branch. But before Lucifer gave the final swing, a blue screen popped in front of him.
System I wish to question Host’s intelligence. As Host is currently on the branch, if it were to fall down, with Host being unable to fly or reduce the speed of his fall, cutting it like this is not the wisest idea.
As he didn’t want to make a fool of himself, Lucifer wanted to get back on the trunk before delivering the last blow. However, when he tried to move away from his position, a cracking sound was heard, before Lucifer saw the ground approaching at a terrifying speed.
Lucifer closed his eyes and braced himself for the incoming impact, but it never came.
When he opened his eyes again, he realized that he was on the head of the azure snake.
“What are you doing kid?”
“Hu- Thanks… I wanted to get a branch from this tree… My memories are a bit fuzzy but I know that the sap of the chrysie tree can be used as an ointment to prevent wounds from getting infected…”
Hearing the sincere tone of Lucifer’s voice, the azure snake burst out of laughing.
“Kid, I don’t know what you are trying to do here but l can tell you that I know you lied to me when you talked about having a fuzzy memory. I won’t try to know your past since I don’t care, however, if you try to lie to me again it won’t end well for you… However, I’m grateful that you are concerned about my injuries but they will heal by themselves with time.”
“I-I see… But, mister should still let me treat them, self-regeneration can’t prevent a disease from entering your body!”
Though Lucifer had been found out, he couldn’t let this chance go. He didn’t know why, but the azure snake seemed to see him in a favorable light, and if he could prove himself useful, it could help him back find a way out of this forest safely.
“Humpf! Do as you wish!”
After the snake hissed those words, it let Lucifer climb down from its head with his branch in his hands.
Lucifer had to use his {Mana Absorption} for some time since he was running out of it after multiples use of {Mana Creation}. After extracting the sap, Lucifer looked around for some clean and long leaves and covered them with the sap. Although the sap should be mixed with other ingredients, he couldn’t afford to look for them now since he didn’t know if he could find them in the first place here.
He put the leaf covered in sap on the wounds of the azure snake, while the latter was looking at him with a surprised look.
When he finished, the azure snake took him on his head again before moving toward an unknown location.
“Hum… Mister snake… What do you want to do with me?”
“I’ll feed you to my child of course.”
The face of Lucifer became pale in fright.
Didn’t you say that you wouldn’t treat me badly? What is that then?! Kindness?
As if it read Lucifer’s mind, the azure snake began to laugh.
“I was just joking… You look human but aren’t one and furthermore, you have such a strong bloodline, I’m more interested in having you as my son than a dinner…”
Hearing his words, Lucifer wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and thanked karma for not messing with him.
“However… It still depends if you’re willing…”
“I’m willing!”
Being the child of an azure snake? This kind of outcome wouldn’t have crossed his mind before, but it was clearly worth it.
“Good… Kid, do you have a name?”
“Yes, my name is Lucifer.”
“Not a bad name. Mine is Syndra. Did your parents abandoned you here?”
“No… I don’t know how I ended up here… I was brought here without knowing anything.”
“So you’re an orphan… You can call me mother in the future, you a noble blood flowing in your vein so you’re not unworthy.”
Sadness was visible in Lucifer’s eyes when he heard her last word before it was replaced by surprised.
“You-you are a mom-“
Feeling the rising killing intent, Lucifer shut his mouth with his two hands. He couldn’t see the eyes of the azure snake but he was sure that it was the kind which could kill just by looking at it.
“Oh… Am I lacking in a feminine way?”
“N-No! Just that… I heard that azure snakes were mostly male… Because female azure snakes…”
“Are crazy? Humpf! We’re not crazy, we just kill those bastards who only think about different women!”
This was a fact that Lucifer knew. Female azure snake hated the male ones because they were all Casanovas. It wasn’t strange for one to kill her mate because she found him cheating on her.
Gale told him that only those who had power could afford multiple women, however, before he could tell him the reason why, his mother was behind him, a smile which wasn’t one on her face as her eyes were knifing him alive. Thus, Lucifer’s knowledge about a man and a woman relationship was insignificant. At best, he knew about friendship at some point, though he hadn’t experienced that feeling at that time, but for everything else, he was completely oblivious.
“Why do they chase after multiple women? From my memories, my father was happy with my mother.”
“Because they can’t keep their needs in check.”
“Needs?”
“You’re too young to know…”
Lucifer stopped asking and stayed silent. He looked in front of him as they moved through, thinking about nothing and everything.
Until a matter came up.
“Mephis!”
“Hum?”
“Thanks for earlier… You switched with me and…”
“Are you stupid? If you die I die, we are in the same body!”
“Well, that’s true… But, without you, I’d still be dead…”
“Don’t mind that… Now we have some backup plan to go through this thing. But it really is a pity that we didn’t get the finishing blow on the silver crystal wolf… We would have leveled up quite a lot. And we might have unlocked the hunter class too.”
“Yeah… Let’s try it another time!”
“… Kill me now…”
A smirk appeared on Lucifer’s face, teasing Mephis had become something he could do every day without getting tired of it.
*growl*
An unnatural sound resounded in the forest as if a monster was waging war against something. Syndra turned her head and looked at Lucifer with eyes full of disbelief. She just couldn’t comprehend how such a small body could release such a terrifying sound.
“Ahum… Well… I am hungry…”
With his eyes cast down and an embarrassed face, Lucifer looked like a little puppy who needed help, which made the impression Syndra had of him turn even more ridicule.
An inheritor of the Dragon King looking as harmless as a cloud is dying of hunger on my head… This kid is something.