Sorry for the late release. Wasn’t really in the mood to write and well yeah that’s my reason.
But this chapter is more than double the length than the others, so that should be sufficient.
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I woke up inside a wooden carriage. I could feel how it slowly moved forward, we were on a bumpy road.
Around me were a few sleeping creatures, Gur, Tris and Chiuco.
Gur had a few bruises, but wasn’t bleeding. I guess he tried running away when they put him into the carriage.
It was dark, the wood of which our transport was made of didn’t have one crack and no sunlight came in, either that or it was night.
Even though no light was present I saw everything perfectly, better than ever before.
As my mind became less cloudy I realized that what I identified as Chiuco wasn’t looking like Chiuco at all.
He was bigger than before, bigger than I am. His skin was covered with dark red scales and his body looked like that of a humanoid Raptor, with long claws and a long head. Because he slept with his mouth open I was able to see his teeth, to say the least they were each at least as long as my cleaver and probably pointier (is that actually a word) than most swords.
Rapteroid (Rare Variant)NameChiucoTitleOne Armed ProdigyLevel2
He evolved, huh? Good for you little guy.
But what is with that Title? I understand the prodigy part, he’s rather strong for a monster that was born as a Lizardling, but one armed?
As he turned around in his sleep I saw it, his left arm was completely destroyed. Only one fourth of it remained, the other three fourth were taken by Tralgur. The leftover arm stump looked strangely grotesque, with pieces of skin hanging everywhere and part of his bones visible under the newly grown skin.
At least this makes it so he will never forget the fight that made him strong.
He now probably overpowers Gur without a problem, I will have to make that Hobgoblin train more.
Gur and Tris both looked like always, relaxed and healthy. Since me and Chiuco went to the fight they didn’t level up once, I bet they skipped their training while I was gone.
A more strict training plan will be appropriate from now on. Both of them against a certain Rapteroid or me should be sufficient.
Wait… I remember the evolution screen that popped up before I went to sleep, what was on there again?
ANNOUNCEMENT: CONDITIONS FOR EVOLUTION HAVE BEEN CLEARED! AVAILABLE EVOLUTIONS WILL NOW BE LISTED
Requirements cleared: Level 100; Butchers Butcher; Otherworldly; Back from the dead; Prodigy; Defier of fate; catched a gods interest; Observer; Trainer; Leader
Special condition for special evolution cleared: Patricide.
Available Evolution Paths will now be shown.
Between the evolutions I got this time I think I just chose one random, because I was about to lose consciousness. I remember parts of what was shown.
Troll: A being between 4 and 5 meters high, extremely strong and ugly. It is unable to feel emotions like passion and love, but feels rage and hatred even more than any other being. When it stays in the sunlight for too long it will lost parts of its abilities and will get slower. This evolution will take almost all your affinities due to a Troll not being able to cast magic of any sorts, except for weak earth magic.
Gargoyle: A creature whose skin is made of stone. Its height is about 2,5 meters and it is slightly weaker than a normal Ogre. On its back grows a pair of wings whenever it has the desire to fly, but due to it being made of stone it can only fly short distances. High stone magic affinity and medium darkness magic affinity guaranteed.
Special Evolution: MaltrollOne of the only creatures the Goddess of Death ever created, only available for those that commit any of the darkest crimes a being can imagine. It reaches about 2 meters in height and is extremely fast. Its strength easily exceeds that of a normal Ogre. It is basically a better looking, small version of the Troll, but is slightly weaker, has a higher intelligence and has no weakness to sunlight. Has high affinity for darkness, death and blood magic and low magic affinity for earth magic, cannot use light, life, illusion and holy magic and cannot bestow blessings. Easily enrages.
Maltroll (Ancient Cursed Variant)NameTralTitleSlayerLevel6
So I chose the Maltroll, the special evolution I got from committing patricide, this doesn’t feel right. Even for me.
If I could choose again I don’t know what I would take.
The Troll loses all its magic affinities except for earth magic, which I don’t know. In addition to that it is at least 4 meters high and extremely ugly. I don’t want any of these two, the being ugly for obvious reasons and a size of 4 meters is nothing else than disadvantageous. Also I don’t want to become a night creature.
The Gargoyle would’ve been interesting. Having the ability to fly can certainly be a big advantage in a fight. A stone like defense wouldn’t be a bad thing either, but I don’t think I would have chosen it. Why? Simply having stone like skin means that you can move like your skin is made of stone, slow.
My fighting style concentrates on fast movements and acrobatics, being slow is a no go there.
I guess I would have taken the Maltroll anyway. Except for the restricted magic affinities it sounds too good. Both strength and speed would be better than an Ogres or a Gremlins, it is said to be at least somewhat attractive and also has none of the weaknesses a normal Troll has.
The affinities for death and blood magic are highly interesting, only the thought of being able to use an enemy’s life force to heal myself is great. Also I never planned on becoming a healer or light mage, so I really don’t have an issue with these affinities becoming useless.
I guess almost unconscious me was rather lucky. I couldn’t deal with being a big ugly thing or a freaking stone.
My new body overflowed with power. I felt like I could do anything, like I could fight a dragon, or well at least a wyvern I guess.
I need to stretch my limbs, but this small carriage doesn’t allow me any mobility.
It wasn’t even big enough for me to stand up completely, as I did I accidently destroyed the wood planks covering its top.
What’s done is done, nothing I can do to fix the planks now, so I just grabbed them with my hands, which by the way had claws which I could sheathe like a cat, and ripped the planks apart.
Finally some fresh air, it was getting stuffy in there.
In the distance I could see mountains and large forests all around us. It was a sunny day with no cloud in the sky. Doesn’t fit my mood at all.
Around me were about 20 soldiers riding on horse like creatures called Dioramas. They were a little bit smaller than normal horses and had striped legs and a striped back. Their fur was in a light brown and they didn’t wear any saddles.
DioramaNameJackieTitleNo TitleLevel3
The soldiers wore chainmail and leather pants, every one of them had brown hair and rather muscular build. As I watched them my ability told me that they all were between level 21 and 40 and were from a human race called “Nords”. Most of them had beards and long, brown hair.
When I first stuck my head out of the carriage some of them made surprised noised, now the whole caravan, which consisted of 4 wagons, such as the one I rode in, stopped. My excellent ears picked up mumblings.
“Why is he awake? We were told that they’d all sleep until we arrive!” (Random soldier)
“What the? We were transporting such a thing? What is that?” (Another soldier)
As everything quieted down a soldier riding on a variant Diorama which had dark green fur rode in front of me.
He wore armor which looked of higher quality than that of the other soldiers and had a helmet with golden decorations on his head.
“Beast! I know you understand me! Go back into your carriage and stay put until we arrive or we will have to punish you!” (Soldier leader)
So that’s how it is? They have me captive and now they threaten me?
In my growing rage I instinctively channeled my darkness magic into his direction.
If I had done that before my evolution it would have instantly killed him, but now I was able to completely control my magic at that distance.
I let it take one of his ears to show how easily I can destroy his flesh and jumped in front of him, not even 20 centimeters distance between our faces.
“Do you want to die, brat?” (Tral)
“W-What is this? I o-order you t-to dispel that magic of yours, you b-beast!” (Soldier leader)
I grabbed his throat and applied pressure on it. Enough to take his breath and hurt him, but not enough to kill him or snap his neck.
“Answer me if you don’t want to die a painful death. Where are we going?”(Tral)
My voice was deep, deeper than before. It feels dark.
“W-Were on the way to L-Lord C-Crixus residence.” (Soldier leader)
“Is he the one that bought me? Also where are my weapons?” (Tral)
“Y-yes he bought you at the arena. Your w-weapons were left there, Lord C-Crixus said they were too shabby for a fighter like y-you.” (Soldier leader)
So that’s what that bastard thinks about the cleaver which Tralgur gave to me, the weapon that saved my life in the fight against the Borees?
I planned to continue fighting in the arena. I would have had a place to stay and would be able to fight strong foes, but I refuse to live under a man that can’t even see a weapons worth.
I let the soldier go, he answered all my questions for the moment.
“You all go now. Run back to you lord. Tell him that I do not accept a piece of filth like him as my master.
Go now, before I lose my patience!” (Tralgur)
As I spoke I already heard how the soldier leader behind me unsheathed his longsword, that fool forgot that I still got my dark magic around him.
“E-EVERYONE ATTACK AT ONCE! KEEP HIM ALIVE BUT DON’T WORRY IF HE LOSES A FEW LIMBS!”(Soldier leader)
About half of the soldiers charged at me, the other ones were stunned in fear and didn’t move.
Finally a chance to stretch my muscles.
With swift moves and leaps in jumped around and used my claws to cut and stab.
It is amazing how far I now can control my magic. Even though the soldier leader is now completely surrounded by my magic it doesn’t kill him, it doesn’t even scratch him. Because I don’t want it to.
For him it is now as if he is kept inside a black solid box without being able to move at all.
The perfect prison, efficient and dangerous at the same time. I can kill him whenever I want.
It all ended in less than a few minutes. I left 5 soldiers including the soldier leader alive, they will tell me what I want to know. I tied them up with some rope I found on one of the soldiers saddles.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
All the Dioramas were kept alive. Strangely they had no fear of me and even let me touch them.
They are probably some kind of domestic monster, dumb but strong.
As I searched the other wagons I found out that we weren’t the only ones that were transported.
In one I found 12 Humans, 8 female and 4 male. In one other wagon were 5 Orcs, 3 Imps and one being called a Kappa. It looked like an Imp, just a little bigger and had blue skin instead of red. He also had something that looked like Gills on his throat.
On the last wagon I searched was equipment. Mostly iron swords and iron armor but I found a weapon that would fit my fighting style perfectly, a Halberd. With it I could attack both at medium and at short range. I will try to get some daggers or small axes for stealth later on.
Commanders HalberdType:CleaverDurability:200 / 200Quality:Rare, enchantedA well done Halberd which was enchanted by students of the Magic AcademyMagical propertiesCuts easier than normal and feels lighter than it actually is.
Not too shabby. This ‘Magic Academy’ sounds rather interesting, one day I may check that out.
All of the armor was made for humans who normally have smaller and thinner bodies than I do, so none of the armor fitted me, except for one helmet, made of a bears skull and decorated with a buck’s horns. (to clarify a buck is a male deer right? Not sure about that)
I put it on for no apparent reason. It had no effects or anything special. I just liked the design.
Next I stripped the captured human soldiers of their armor and weapons, surprisingly only 3 of the 5 were male, the other two were young woman.
Not wanting to stay in the middle of the road I had them load up the corpses and pull the carriages inside the forest which was a few minutes of walk away from us.
In a few days, when this Crixus realizes that what he bought will never arrive, there will probably someone be coming after us. We need to go deeper.
After a few hours in the woods Gur and Chiuco woke up.
Gur’s first reaction was to shriek and tackle me, then he saw Chiuco and tried to climb a tree in order to hide. A genius as always.
Chiuco started inspecting his body and mumbled something about feeling strong and how great it is to live while he hysterically jumped around, not minding his missing arm.
“Gur what are you doing? Get down here now!”(Tral)
“You! Big Monster! Gur not dumb! Get away or Gur will attacked!”(Gur)
This guy…
“Gur goddamnit! It’s me, Tral! I evolved.” (Tral)
“Tral? Brother? You no look like before!” (Gur)
“I already told you, I evolved! Now get down here or I will have to come up there. And believe me you don’t want that.”(Tral)
“Okayokayokay me is on my way.”(Gur)
Just as he climbed down and took a look at how my body changed he realized that a certain Rapteroid was also there and tried to run away again. It took some time to convince him that the happy lizard was indeed Chiuco.
After that he quickly went back to being his old cheerful self and played a game of tag with Chiuco, which he miserably lost. The lizard really got fast, Gur had no chance.
After I slapped some seriousness into the two of them I ordered them to watch over my prisoners, who looked terrified of Chiuco, and to tell everyone that wakes up, in what kind of situation they were.
In the meantime I went and scouted the area out. Mainly to find a place where we could stay for the moment and secondarily to test how fast I can move forward with my body.
I found several kinds of wildlife. Foxes, small cats, rats, wolves, a few kinds of bears, snakes, big spiders, rabbits and a few different species of birds, like eagles and sparrows. They were all low leveled and I had no problem with any of them, but I was also in a hurry so I observed none for too long and got no new abilities, I will do that sometime else.
After a few hours of search I found a small cave in the middle of the forest. Directly next to it was a small river that seemed to go through the mountain.
It was about to be dawn so I didn’t have enough time to clear the whole cave, but I entered it for a few minutes and killed some kind of bat, called “seven-colored bat” which inhabited it.
The bats in general were weak, but there were two individuals among them called “Vampire Bat” that were bigger and faster than the others.
As I arrived back at the carriages it was way better than expected. Gur knocked the soldiers out when they tried to convince him to let them go, and was now chatting with some of the human women that were transported.
He certainly isn’t the brightest but I got to admit, he’s a real ladykiller. The women can’t get enough of him and are standing around him, chatting with him nonstop.
Chiuco was nowhere to be seen, after angrily shouting his name he fell out of a treetop, where he slept while he let Gur do the work of watching our prisoners.
Tris was the only one that seemed to take the order I gave them, which Gur told her as best as he could after she woke up, serious.
She had some leather armor and a longsword equipped which she found in the equipment carriage and was watching out that no one tried to run away. She ran to me and hugged me when I arrived, she didn’t even question why I was looking different now and seemed to instinctively know that it was me.
I spotted the Dioramas who followed us near the carriages, where they were happily playing with each other and eating grass and small plants. The Diorama variant itself bit off parts of a trees bark and wood without problems and seemed to enjoy them.
As I moved closer to them, most were backing off, except for the variant one.
It walked directly in front of me and looked me in the eyes. This thing was no normal, dumb monster.
It was at least as intelligent as Gur, what is to be honest not a big step from being a dumb monster.
I moved closer to it, holding my hand in front of me as if I wanted to pet a cat. It didn’t flinch when I touched it, but the other Dioramas seemed to realize that I meant no harm and continued to eat.
Skill: monster taming (lesser) learned
As soon as that popped up I felt as if the Diorama was asking me if I wanted to be its master.
Without thinking about it I said ‘yes’ in my mind.
Master-pet pact successfully created
I felt as if my new pet had some kind of mental connection with me now. As I wanted it to walk to Tris, who stood behind me, I ordered it by thinking, without saying a word.
It understood and walked up to her without hesitation.
I myself am faster than most monsters that could carry me, but Tris herself would have great advantages from being seated on this Diorama.
Are you sure to pass the Master-Pet pact to Hobgoblin Tris?
Indeed I am.
She looked surprised, stunned at how she suddenly became master of a variant Diorama.
After I told her what I just did I left her alone to get used to her new companion.
She immediately started playing with it and riding it around.
In the meantime all the sleeping Orcs and Imps had woken up. I gathered them and talked to them all.
“You were slaves. Treated like trash and thrown away for copper coins!
My Name is Tral and I am gonna kill that one they call King, the one they call Crixus and the one that made me fight my father. I will rip them apart and destroy everything they have built.
I want every one of you to decide now. Join me on my path of death and vengeance or run and hide like maggots.” (Tral)
Chiuco and Tris were already standing beside me and Gur, who quickly realized that he was not standing with us, ran to Chiuco and shouted something about ripping some humans apart.
“They killed my brethren and enslaved me and made me kill for their enjoyment. I will join you.” (Kappa – now called Kruxs)
With him several Imps, who seemed to be his acquaintances, joined us.
“Heard Humans eat us! Bastards! Only Orc is allowed to eat Orc after good fight! They slaughter without fight! We with you!” (several Orcs)
All except for some of the Imps and Orcs joined us by now. Left were only the humans that were in a discussion with each other right now.
One of them started raging and jumped in front of me. He was almost as big as Tralgur and has muscles which would make any Hobgoblin jealous.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL THE MAN THAT ENSLAVED US?” (Vrag)
“I don’t only think I can do that. I KNOW I will do that.” (Tral)
“HAH! You got balls! I will aid you with my hammer! BUT DON’T YOU DARE WASTE MAH TIME!” (Leo)
As I examined him I realized that his Job was indeed blacksmith. He will be very useful in the future. I will make him work off his excessive energy so he will scream a bit less.
Several other humans joined him and came over to our side, including the women that had taken a liking in Gur. Lucky little guy.
The other slaves we saved agreed to join us, but didn’t want to enter my crusade. I won’t force any former slave to help me, so I’m fine with this as long as they proof themselves useful.
As the last humans decided I heard the soldier leader, whose hands and feet were tied down so he couldn’t escape. He muttered something about not joining us and started crawling away. He thought I didn’t see or hear him. It was evening already and in the cover of the trees most humans wouldn’t have seen much. But I am no human, everything in the darkness is as clear for me as if it was day, if not even clearer.
I went furious, couldn’t stop myself and almost went into True Berserk mode.
Before the skill automatically activated itself with my growing rage I got into Mindful Berserk mode.
Slowly I walked to the soldier leader, my eyes glowing red and my muscles growing nonstop.
He shivered as I picked him up at his neck, begged me to let him down and forgive him.
I wasn’t planning on doing that.
“You four others. I let you live even though you attacked me. Do you think I’m gonna do that a second time? Because I sure as hell won’t. This is a warning for the four of you. Don’t fuck with me!”(Tral)
I enhanced my claws with darkness magic. I put in enough power to destroy flesh without problems, but not destroy bones.
“All of these slaves have slave marks on their bodies, on their heads, torsos, arms or legs.
Now I will show everyone here that you are not worth anything more than an object. You are now our possession. A worthless one that is. And we are free now.”
I let my claws sink into his flesh, knowing that it would never fully heal again. Even if this man would survive the next days no healer would ever be able to restore his body. I took my time and enjoyed it.
As I was done on his back was written ‘SHAME’ and on his chest ‘MAGGOT’ with my darkness magic.
The wounds didn’t bleed, I made it that way so that he would not die now, but it would also never fully close. Till the last day of his miserable life he will feel the pain. And he will remember my face in his darkest nightmares. That I will make sure of, trust me.
And now, now it is time to start a new day.
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Okay you guys. I will take the next days to come up with how I will manage the magic system and maybe some use for titles.
For that I will post a new info chapter in which I will include what I wrote in the old one.
Also I will take some time until the next chapter to think of how to continue.
Expect maybe half a week to a week of no updates.