“This humble servant wishes to take my ladies challenge”, he said, still bowing to her.
“Good”, she replied with a small but pleasant smile.
Without missing a beat, Malenia prepares to send Rey back to Eardh. Raising her left arm, the aura around her begins to get denser, even to the point it’s palpable.
Crack
As her arm rises, cracks start to appear in the ground, and from those cracks a golden light is released. The cracks continue to form, surrounding the two from all directions. Once Malenia’s arm reaches her chest height it stops and as does the cracks.
Around them is a massive circle of glowing light exuding from the ground. The light forms a series of symbols and shapes within the circle, none of which Rey can understand the meaning of.
Whoosh
Malenia’s aura begins moving from her body into the magical formation, seemingly powering it as the golden glow gets righter.
Rey watched all of this with an interested gaze until the light became so bright that he couldn’t help but close his eyes.
“I will see you in 80 years human”, she said before…
FLASH
The light exploded for a moment before disappearing the next. Malenia was left standing there on her own with Rey nowhere in sight.
*****
‘hmmmm?’
After opening my eyes I suddenly find myself falling…
Falling from the sky no less…
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
As I fall I scream both inwardly and outwardly.
‘Why the hell am I in the sky! I’ll die again! Is this a joke! Why did she send me into the sky!’
As I fell I could see an entire city, however, I was too preoccupied to notice anything about it. Right now, my focus was on my impending death… again.
As the ground rapidly approaches I find myself thinking frantically for a way to survive, however, the ground is too close and the best I manage to do is cast [Rubius] before slamming into the ground.
THUD
…
…
…
…
“Haaa… Haaa… Haaa”
Rising my head I begin taking massive breaths as I realise I’m still alive!
In fact… I’m not even injured!
After taking a moment to collect myself I stand up… a little confused by the uninjured state of my body.
Once I’d fully assessed the state of my body I started to look around, and too my shock… I immediately recognised this place.
I was in the stadium that I died in. The massive field, immense viewing stand and every nuance of detail such as the positions of the entrance and exits paths, the advertising brands, the shape of the open dome overhead. All of it was the same… except…
It was all run down.
The stadium looked like no one had been here in decades. Chairs were broken, the field was overgrown, the entire place was dusty and gave a feeling of abandonment.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It didn’t take me long to remember that Malenia told me this world was invaded by monsters which explained the change in atmosphere.
‘The people must’ve abandoned this place when the monsters arrived’.
As I realised this it suddenly occurred to me that an abandoned city, potentially full of monsters, and the big bang I just caused when I feel from the sky, not to mention my screaming…
Bad combination.
I could feel my face pale a bit.
Immediately I started dashing for some enclosed space. The old changing sheds that I’ve been to a thousand times before.
As I approached the sheds I realised how dark it was inside.
‘Right… no electricity I guess’.
Immediately I used [Spark], only realising after I could already see that my new body didn’t affect my use of it in the slightest. In fact, I even ran at the same speed I did in the land in between.
‘I guess my soul level affects my physical body as well’.
Instinctively I checked [Soul Manifest].
[Soul Manifest]
[Name: Rey Stein]
[Race: Human (Awakened)]
[Constitution: Sloth]
[Soul Level: 36]>
[Physical Level: 1]>
[@###%$^()!@#!@$#$%^#!@]
[Karma: ?]
[Luck: ?]
[Martial Affinity: Reaper’s Harvest]
[Spells: Incarnat, Rubius, Accel, Incras]>
[Abilities: Spark, Soul Manifest]>
[Soul Level: 36]^
[Mana: 7100]
[Intelligence: 138]
[Physical Level: 1]^
[Strength: 81]
[Agility: 94]
[Stamina: 109]
[Ki: ?]
And to my surprise, quite a few things had changed.
I now have a physical level, and even though my physical level is 1, my stats are the same as before. Actually they are a little bit higher because I reach soul level 36.
And not only that…
My stats have split to below there respective levels. I still don’t know what ki, karma or luck means but this is a good step in the right direction. It also seems that my soul level probably will continue to affect my physical stats even though they aren’t from the same category. I think…
Also… what the heck does awakened mean.
My race now says that I am an awakened human…
That’s probably a good thing right?
…
Right?
…
Moving on, I continue to delve into the dark sheds. Once I am there and I ensure that I am not treading into monster territory I take a seat.
I need a plan.
My deal with that lady specifies that I save people from these monsters. I havn’t seen one yet but I can already guess that they are dangerous if the military couldn’t handle them. Either there are so many of them that they were overwhelmed, or these monsters on their own are impervious to most attacks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter. These things come from a dark god right? It would be weird if bullets and bombs were affective right? What about missiles though… and I guess nukes… are they useless as well?
Since my goal is to save people I should focus on eliminating these monsters. If I had to guess, my soul power probably gives me a way to do that. I can’t see why that lady would send me here if I couldn’t do it. And if I want to save people, it’s better to destroy the source instead of waiting for people to be in danger.
However… I don’t have any info on what these things look like. Do they look like how I imagine a monster would look?
Big, scary, sharp claws, razor sharp teeth. Maybe like an undead T-rex? Or a cursed looking hybrid of otherworldly creatures? Maybe they are actually small and fact little critters?
‘Hmmmm’.
Thinking about all this, I didn’t realise it when my guests arrived.
CRACK
Hearing a cracking sound, my eyes snapped to the source, which was by the entrance. There I saw a massive black hand with sharp claws gripping the wall. The hand was at least the size of my torso.
I froze in shock when I saw this, but it didn’t end there.
The hand pulled on the wall, making the concrete crumble in its fingers. As it did, the rest of it’s body started emerging from the darkness. A hunched down massive figure slowly pushed itself into the room. Once it’s entire body was in the light I finally realised how messed up my situation is. And no I’m not talking about being stuck in a room with this thing. I mean how I have to somehow clear the world of these things.
Still hunched down because the ceiling is too low, stood before me a monster whose entire body is black. It was skinny, with only lean muscles surrounding its bones. Given how much it was crouching I would say it’s at least 4 meters tall when up right. It’s body resembled a humans somewhat except for its arms and legs being too long for its body. It’s head was also elongated upward. Small yellow slits cut directly in its skin resembled eyes… it’s 5 eyes. It’s mouth just looked like another thin slit that went across the lower part of its head.
As it continued to force it’s way into the room I finally moved and start backing towards a wall, getting as far away as possible from it.
Once my back was on the wall I started shuffling towards another door, acting like it couldn’t see me if I moved slow enough. Sorely enough this wasn’t the case as it’s head followed me as I did this.
Staring at each other for a while neither of us did much expect for my slow escape attempt. However, before I could get close enough to the door to open it the creature made it’s move.
“SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!”
Opening it’s mouth until it’s head literally folded back by 90 degrees it screeched a deathly wail so loud that I felt my ear drums burst!
I fell to the ground, losing my balance and feeling blood drench my hands that were covering my ears. Suddenly, almost reflexively I leapt to the side as a long black arm flew towards me, crashing through the wall behind me, making the entire thing crumble.
Scrambling to my feet, struggling to maintain my balance, the creature and I stared at each other again, this time it’s eyes had a glint resembling a hunter in them.
‘I’m so screwed’ I thought.