I didn't expect to open my eyes again, much less open them up in hell. My world was in shades of dark red and pain. My thoughts were sluggish and I could barely control myself.
Insanity, madness, and terror...
I could not control what I felt, what I did, nor what I wanted to do. I felt free, so free of everything in the world, that it was strange life could be more than what it was now.
The pain twisted my mind and brought me back to reality for a split second before the delirium started again.
What was I doing? My head hurt trying to remember what happened six seconds ago, let alone entire minutes before this. My head hurt.
I looked in front of me towards the dead monster and suddenly all the feelings and emotions faded away, giving way to something stronger. An intense hunger unlike anything I had ever felt overcame me.
Every movement of my body was impossibly hard and painful, yet I didn't care. I run towards the downed monster, barely noting the missing lower half of my body, and the better part of my upper torso barely being held together by the burnt flesh and exposed bones. If anything, I only noticed it because it made the distance harder to cross.
The flesh of the lifeless body seemed beyond delicious. I... I wanted to eat. No, I needed to eat it!
I started feeling less pain as the hunger overwhelmed me. The unending fury and hunger were fighting to be the first to consume me.
It was between the fight of those two that I managed to regain my sanity once again, a strange moment of clarity, just a fleeting thought that I was more complex than this, that I could feel something other than anger and be fueled by something other than rage.
Then I reached the dead monster and the hunger overwhelmed me. I blacked out, acting purely on instinct, gorging upon the dead monster's flesh.
I felt my body getting lighter the more I ate, stronger and more healthy. I became addicted to this feeling. My jaws bit deep into the tough flesh of the monster until there wasn't any left to eat.
After that moment there was nothing... nothing to eat. My body trembled and spasmed looking for something to eat.
Then, I saw more than five of these small bundles of meat coming at me full of anger. I couldn't move, I was overjoyed from the gift they prepared for me.
The imps stopped well out of my reach and begun chanting. Barely making a motion, a dozen small fireballs shot out towards me.
A past memory flashed in my head, I had seen that attack before. Fear run through my primitive mind for only a second, anger replacing it however quickly enough. How dare the meat fight back!
A black notification popped up along with a few others and I felt my mind growing hazier and stranger. Using strength I didn't know I had, I pushed my body out of the way. My arms were powerful enough to lift my body, so I didn't necessarily need legs to move. I felt myself losing something vital in exchange for that strength, but it was a trickle compared to what I would gain by eating them.
Placing my hands on the ground, I grabbed the earthen floor and felt it give under my strength, propelling myself towards the imps. I fell headfirst into one of them and quickly did a taste test, biting at its neck.
A bit chewy, and way harder to bite through, but all in all the flavor was far better than the unmoving imp. Of course, the imp was on its knees for some reason, clatching at its throat which I had gracefully torn apart.
I smiled; they flinched.
A scorching fireball hit my back the second I managed to swallow the pure delicacy, throwing me off the imp.
Being thrown on the ground made me angry again, and I normally would have lost it, but after the black notification, I was getting better at managing my emotions and even thinking more clearly. They would pay.
I threw myself at the stupid imp that dared to hit me with its hot air, or at least the one I thought was the culprit and put all of my strength into biting its head off.
Not expecting the imp to dodge, I hit the imp standing behind it, executing the same strategy.
I got to say, however, this part of their body was perhaps the better tasting of all. Plus, it seemed to be the most effective at making them less active.
Not waiting for the imp to throw me off my meal again, I got off on my own, pushing towards the imp next to it. The poor meat didn't have a chance to react, receiving the same treatment as its two other unfortunate brothers.
At the edge of my vision, I could see the two remaining meals backing off and got angry.
Thankfully, they hadn't run away too far. Putting even more strength into my arms than before, I shot out forward like a bullet. Due to my speed, I could only hit it with my head, unable to bite. Well, I rectified that quickly, latching on to its body and tearing its throat apart, leaving only one of those meals left.
I had a personal feud with the remaining one, as it was the one that hit me with the fireball and even dared to dodge my lunge. Its face looked somewhat resolute, which was a bit weird, but as long as it didn't run away I couldn't care less.
The Imp's face turned ashen and it's body started vibrating with power. In an instant, over twenty fireballs appeared without a word or sign.
They started to curve and head towards me with speed that belied the previous ones. Not expecting such a thing to be possible, I got hit by about all of the ones aimed at me. Thankfully most of them hit the ground and the Imp was far less accurate with twenty fireballs than with one, but getting hit by five or so fireballs really itched.
Well, it was itching compared to the pain from before. I guess the imp didn't expect me to jump towards it even as I was hit by its fireballs and didn't dodge this time. Next time bring bigger balls to the party!
I laughed and viciously bit its neck, ending the fight. The imp tried to say something and moved its arms, but no hot air formed in front of it.
Glancing back, none of the imps were actually dead, all of them just writhing in the ground. I considered what that meant for a second before shrugging and moving slowly towards the fresh flesh bags.
My hand had already healed up which made it a bit easier to move as I could use more force with it now, not that I limited myself before that though. I looked towards my lower half which had also regenerated somewhat but I was still missing my legs. Perhaps if I eat more?
So I did.
My thoughts became more and more clear and I even managed to recollect a few stuff from what I was supposed to be. A human! No... a zombie?
It didn't matter, as long as I kept eating my thoughts would keep getting clearer. I had only eaten one of the imps alive, there were still four more. It was considerably harder to eat them while they were struggling, but they were tastier for some reason.
Eating the final imp was a challenge, my body refusing to accept more food, but I managed. After that, however, I blacked out and lost consiousness.
An unknown amount of time later, I regained my senses. My legs were whole and complete once more and... I had eaten something alive.
I wanted to vomit, but there was nothing to vomit, so my body settled for dry heaving. I still resorted to sealing that memory as best I could. I felt disgusted by my actions, but at the same time, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
Trying to get my mind out of those memories, hopefully forever, I contemplated about my mortality and the events before the hunger.
I was so close to dying, no scratch that, I should have died. Was this what it meant for my health and vitality to be null? Like the number didn't matter as long as my head or heart was alright? No, my heart was definitely burned medium rare...
I saw my limbs regenerating and a sea of colorful notifications awaited me while I was unconsious. As I was already looking for things to take my mind off that insanity, it wasn't hard to focus purely on the screens in front of me.
Essence Taken
Rare Monster: Imp, Level 2
Experience: 150(+20%)(-66.6%)
Total Experience: 60
Essence Taken
Rare Monster: Imp, Level 1
Experience: 80(-66.6%)
Total Experience: 26
....
Essence Taken
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Rare Monster: Imp, Level 4
Experience: 430(+40%)(-66.6%)
Total Experience: 201
Too many notifications, I frowned.
Shaking my head, I dismissed them as fast as I could and moved on to the rest of them.
Skill level up list
Infected Bite level 2 -> 7
Infected Blood level 1 -> 5
Unending Hunger level 0 -> 2
Pain Resistance level 2 -> 9
Corruption Resistance level 2 -> 5
Walking level 2 -> 3
Running level 1 -> 2
Breathing level 1 -> 3
Perception lvl 0 -> 1
I was a bit shocked at the Pain Resistance and Infected Bite... thought they'd be higher.
Skill Gained Minor Life Restoration
This wasn't exactly a surprise, but it's not normal to regenerate entire limbs or even half your body.
Actually I don't think you are supposed to survive this, but I have already been proven wrong one too many times and frankly, if it's for my benefit I couldn't care less about being proven wrong.
Then I noticed another skill window... one which I was afraid to bring up,
Corrupting Skill Gained
Insanity
I had a bad feeling about that one. These red windows are never a good thing, which conflicted with the fact that gaining skills was usually a good thing.
Nevertheless, I decided to take a look at my skills, this time a bit more carefully, trying to grab as much information as I could from that simplistic window.
Mylas Cohen's Skill Description Infectious Bite - Active - lvl 7
Your bite has a fast-acting infection that weakens the afflicted target. Weaker afflicted targets without resistance may be forcefully transformed into a Lesser Undead.
Infectious Blood - Passive - lvl 2
Your blood carries a fast-acting infection that weakens afflicted targets. Weaker afflicted targets without resistance may be forcefully transformed into a Lesser Undead.
Status Effect: Intelligence - 2, Wisdom -2, Strength +4, Agility +4, Vitality +4
Unending Hunger - Active - lvl 5
A corrupting skill; absorbs essence?
Minor Life Restoration - Active - lvl 2
A skill that utilizes life to restore the body, inefficiently, but enough for lower existences.
Pain Resistance - Passive - lvl 9
Resist the effects of pain on your mental corruption.
Status Effect: Vitality +9
Corruption Resistance - Passive - lvl 5
Resist the effects of mentally corrupting skills, a rare skill most would die for and because of.
Status Effect: Strength +5, Agility +5, Vitality +5, Intelligence +5, Wisdom +5
Insanity - Passive
A corrupting skill that affects the psyche as well as the mental block that protects and limits. Affected areas are of strength and agility, but other variations of the skill also exist.
Status: Error +1
Walking - Passive - lvl 3
You grow less tired as you walk.
Status Effect: Vitality +3
Running - Passive - lvl 2
Your stamina consumption is reduced depending on the skill level.
Status Effect: Agility +4
Breathing - Passive - lvl 3
Life begins from one breath and ends with the lack of one.
Status Effect: Vitality +3
Not a simple window anymore... I see.
Some of the descriptions had changed completely, and even the name of the window pop-up changed. Was this because of the difference in the way I thought? New information?
Then I noticed something weird; the comments on my Corruption Resistance and Minor Life Restoration...
'A rare skill most would die for and because.'
'Other variations of the skill also exist.'
They provided no information about the skill, but rather thoughts relevant to the skill.
Perhaps I had been thinking about the system in a wrong way. Even still, I don't have enough information to do anything more than guess, and even if I knew I doubted it would change much.
As for Insanity, it seemed like a bad skill to level... what level was it again?
I don't think it showed the level when I read the skill descriptions. I tried to bring up the level of the skill and its small description, but it was like the skill itself was resisting me.
Insanity - level 9
I'm hungry...
Nope, no to Hell and back. And how was it already level 9 when I had just gotten it?!
I think I will leave the mental scarring for later and hope I don't have PTSD at a succeeding time.
The black screen went away the second I was distracted and I didn't have the heart to bring it back.
What are these skills? How do they affect me? Why am I still able to go on when I should still be on the ground, crawling, half-insane, and crying.
Perhaps the only reason I hadn't gone insane was because of my resistances and the other corrupting skill fighting for control.
Which reminds me... I was born with a corrupting skill, Unending Hunger.
I read its description and couldn't help but laugh under my breath; half of my skills felt like they were trying to kill me and the other half barely made any sense.
I took a look around me to see if there were any monsters left, realizing how unguarded and unprotected I was while I spent my merry time reading about my skills and theorizing and laying unconsious.
Well, not that it would have made much of a difference, it's not like the imps are the stealthiest hunters around. Except for the unconsious part, that would have been the dumbest way to die in my books. Survive an epic battle against enemies far outleveling you, but die because you slept in a wide open area full of enemies.
Speaking of the devil, one of those bastards was just coming out of the school's doors. I prepared myself for a desperate fight, but the monster just took a look at me and ignored me. No, it didn't ignore me, it smirked at me? I tried to inspect it, to gleam any possible information that could give me an advantage... nothing happened.
My eyes must have been playing tricks...
Then, the imp started heading towards me and I stood up in haste. It scoffed looking at my reaction and passed by me, inspecting the dead bodies and nodding with a smile. Smiles don't match imps, frowns do. It said something to me in a weird language, but if it knew I couldn't understand half a shit about what it was saying, didn't seem to matter to it. It reminded me of the strange language they used when chanting spells, only more casual. After speaking for some time, it calmly retreated back into the dungeon, leaving me buffled as to what was going on.
I couldn't understand why it wasn't attacking me when I remembered something from before the chaos.
Undead are categorized as beginner level Monsters
Which meant that at least it didn't see me as a human, but it had seen me kill its bretheren, right? Perhaps going in alone and pretending to be just another casual monster wouldn't be such a bad idea.
I looked to see what the dungeon had to say,
Status Incomplete
Very informative if I had to say so myself.
I got up, feeling a bit sore from all the hours I've been spending on the ground, or completely regenerating almost my entire body, who's to say which was at fault.
I took a look at my status screen,
Uncommon Monster Species Undead Name Mylas Cohen Status Bewildered Extended Status Level
3 Experience
45/1260
Strength 27 (18) Agility 19.2 (24) Vitality Null Intelligence 19 Wisdom 21 Unallocated Status Points 15
Turns out that those random skills were useful for something. My agility is far higher than it was when I was simply level zero.
And my mental attributes had passed the twenty mark... not? Didn't I get 5 points on them? Nope, don't question it, move on.
My vitality was still Null, but what did that mean actually? I checked to see if I could allocate points there, but to my dismay, the two status points placed into vitality just... disappeared. I didn't notice anything change with myself, nor my status screen, but the points were gone.
Scared properly of putting any more points there, I placed the rest where it would benefit me more... Strength.
Strength 46.5 (31)
The feeling of rushing power overwhelmed me for a split second. Then, I started feeling the changes, the muscles in my entire body spasming and twitching before settling down half a second later.
I hadn't gained any muscles, my form was still the same, but I somehow knew I was far stronger than before. Well it was high time I checked out what the school was all about.
I got up and started walking, my pace normal, and my mind calmer and colder than ever before. I was confident for the first time in my life that I would succeed.
It was a weird feeling, but I wasn't a human any longer. There were instincts battling inside of me and intelligence that did not befit a random undead.
Currently, I wasn't all too bothered about my psychological problems, it let me fight. After that, however, I would have a good talk with my instincts as to who was the boss around here. I may be a monster now, but I was a human first, and losing control like that was very annoying.