The three monsters stood hidden in a large mass of leaves and vegetation on the side of the track, their hiding strategies becoming more difficult as Zilch had gotten much bigger. Sayuri was hardly noticeable, as she was a plant herself, and her dark green skin blended in nicely with the blue vegetation. Prometheus decided to try out something different, applying the knowledge of mobile plant cells he had gotten from modifying Sayuri's genes.
Okay, first of all, I need to make sure the cells don't have as much of a rigid outer membrane. I don't need to necessarily go all-in with a plant form, I can just use it for certain parts. I can create a plant-bone hybrid tissue.
The shapeshifter first turned into a large tiger with blue fur, seeing how it was a good form for an ambush. As his body was exclusively filled with bone, muscles, and his Core's roots, he didn't have any organs. For that reason, his bone strength was much more important. He began slightly modifying a fraction of the cells in his bones to become plant-like, following those in Sayuri's body. At a 30-70 plant-bone ratio, Theo felt satisfied that his bones had become more flexible without sacrificing durability. He tried pushing the plant amount more but his bones collapsed, so he reversed the change.
Medium-rank Shapeshifting leveled up to lvl 4!
Nice. Just another level, and I can work on getting it to high-rank.
The group of monsters awaited patiently for their target, which didn't arrive for another half-hour. Prometheus heard the first signs when a low rumbling sounded in the distance, slowly intensifying. A figure appeared in the distance, an unarmored man riding a bear-like creature. The man himself wasn't equipped with special equipment, only a spear on his back, but the creature under him was what got Theo's attention.
I've never seen a creature like that. It looks like someone modified a bear to be thinner and more agile.
Right behind the first man, another dozen people followed, all of them riding the same type of creature and equipped the same way. Three others walked on foot, closer to the center. In the middle of them all stood a single, large carriage-like vehicle, only without any animal pulling it forward.
Is that a car? Did these people invent the combustion engine already? Wait, no, I don't think that's the case. I can feel a lot of Influence moving from inside the carriage, into the wheels. It's probably what's making them spin. We are against fourteen tier two's, three tier three's, and unknown dangers inside that carriage.
Low-rank Supernality sense leveled up to lvl 3!
He saw Zilch burrowing into the ground and disappearing below them, the underground being the worm's natural habitat. Theo and Sayuri needed to wait for the signal, as the General had explained. The shapeshifter lowered down his tiger form, like a sprinter waiting for the *bang* before running off in a race. The bamboo samurai put a hand on the handle of her sword, lowering herself into a combat stance. Theo felt Influence gather around her sword, but it wasn't [Enhancement], it was something else. It's moving like a calm river.
Theo could hear two of the men chat about wages and salaries, about how little they got paid for their work.
"You think so? I mean, I know that he's our squad leader, but one Soladite? That's too much, we don't even make that in three months!"
"Think about it. Did you see him last night with that necklace? I felt Influence inside of it. No one with our wages could buy something like that."
"I guess you're right. Hey, do you feel that?"
"What?"
"The ground. I can feel some tremors. Is there an earthquake happening? Should we tell Lady Celestia?"
"You're right, it's a bit unusual. What-"
The two men didn't manage to finish their conversation as two massive worms made of dirt and rocks exploded from the ground, engulfing both of them immediately. They were just as big as Zilch, and Theo knew these were the golems the worm was talking about, as they didn't have a Soul inside of them, only a 'ball' of Influence, probably as a source of energy which looked somewhat similar to a real Soul. The real Zilch exploded from the ground soon after, devouring another man whole from the top of their mounts, equipment and all. He was mimicking dirt with his skin, making the worm almost identical to the two golems.
He's using [Soul cloaking]. If I didn't know the exact details of what he looked like, I wouldn't know which one was real.
That was the signal they were waiting for, and the two monsters burst into action. The massive golems were causing chaos with the low-tier guards, but Theo and Sayuri had the role of eliminating the three internal guards, walking unmounted right beside the carriage. As soon as they noticed the chaos, one of them sounded a horn, which prompted the carriage to conjure up a metal armor around itself, encasing it like a metal coffin.
Prometheus sent a quick mental communication to Sayuri telling her that he would go for the farthest one, and she replied by nodding and moving towards the closest one. All three enemies had spears as weapons, just as low quality as everything else he had seen in this world. Only one of them was a woman.
They disregard beauty for pure functionality. I could never live like them. They could never replicate my perfect sense of style, or Arthur's cool suits. Anyway, let's see how I do against enemies of my same tier.
As always, Theo bypassed his self-defense procedure by letting his enemy take an aggressive stance toward him. That was enough for his danger algorithms to recognize the threat as an attack. He had started doing that since the error he had encountered during the bandit siege, where he had been stuck in a loop before falling into emergency mode. If he didn't do that, he wouldn't be able to attack humans. He was essentially tricking his algorithms to let him attack people.
I won't make the same mistake I made back then when I met the bandits.
The man that Theo was running towards didn't have enough time to point his spear at him before the one-ton tiger rammed against the human, throwing him down with a disgusting crunch. A single swipe on his enemy's neck ended the battle.
Boring, but not surprising. I won against that tier six guard, so a tier three should be boringly easy to eliminate.
He turned his head to look at Sayuri, who stopped in front of the only woman in the entourage, readying her weapon. His friend's delay confused Prometheus. She could have sliced her immediately, why allow the enemy to regain their composure?
Theo's focus on his companion made him miss the spear sticking into his neck, with the third guard pushing it deeper with a snarl on his face. The flesh around the spearhead began freezing slowly, Influence moving from the man into the weapon. The spear had stopped around twenty centimeters below the skin, nowhere near his Core. With a simple bite, the third man fell to the ground, clutching his bleeding neck.
Returning his focus to the samurai, he noticed Sayuri's opponent jabbing her spear forward with a flash of fire on the weapon's tip, aiming for the plant monster's head. Sayuri was half a meter taller than her opponent, who had used [Enhancement] and an ability on her spear strike. What happened next made Theo's eyes open up completely in bewilderment. Just before the spear had touched the bamboo monster, her katana had flashed forward with a burst of Influence, bisecting both the spear and her enemy. A blade of water continued flying forward, eventually dropping on the ground a dozen meters later in a splash.
The woman looked around herself, mouth slightly open, eyes curious. Sayuri bowed, lifting her katana, which didn't have a single drop of blood on it. The woman's spear fell down in two pieces. The same happened to her a second later, her upper half dropping on the ground with a wet sound, organs spilling out. The samurai's weapon went through the woman's eye, and into her brain, ending the battle.
Prometheus looked around the area, noticing how almost all of the weaker humans were already dead, devoured by the massive deathworm. Only the mounts remained, which began scampering away towards the forest in fear. Prometheus ran up to one, holding it in place with his claws. It tried running away, but the shapeshifter was stronger.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He sent a needle into the monster's body, retrieving some blood. With that, he had the DNA of the lanky bears. Once again, Theo felt his Soul clap its imaginary hands, satisfied.
There are no signs of genetic modifications here, just pure evolution and selective breeding for endurance and docility.
He let go of the bear monster, which ran away deep into the forest.
Before he moved on to the carriage, he noticed one of the external guards, rolling on the ground in pain. What set off Theo's mental alarms was how young he looked.
Oh no, no, no, no, shit!
He immediately ran up to the boy, determining that he couldn't be older than twelve or thirteen. A blood test revealed he was indeed twelve. The boy was missing an arm and was clutching his bleeding stump with the other hand. Prometheus shifted part of his fur into a thin, leathery material, which he removed to use as improvised bandages. With a thin whip-like limb, he constricted the missing stump, limiting its blood loss. He immediately sent many anti-infection cells into the boy's bloodstream, with the objective of preventing an infection. He spent the next ten minutes sending additional cells which were modified to be the same as the kid's ones, so as to not be rejected by the body. Theo was able to close the wound, preventing further blood loss. Both Sayuri and Zilch had moved near him, observing his actions.
"Why are you saving him?" Asked Zilch.
"He's a kid, I can't let him die." The boy had long lost consciousness, but he was still alive. Theo immediately shifted into a large, flying form resembling a bike-sized falcon, and took off to the skies with the young kid.
On the ground, Zilch looked at Sayuri, who was crossing her arms.
"Was he always this kind towards young humans?" Ask the worm.
"I don't know. It surprised me as well. Prometheus never seemed like the honorable type of warrior to me." Sayuri then found a spot on the side of the road, waiting for the shapeshifter. Zilch did the same. They would wait for their friend.
In the sky, Prometheus was flying as fast as possible where the carriage had come from, without causing more damage to the boy. After a couple of minutes, he saw a massive wall in the distance, but its design was different from the one in Golden Lake. The large falcon flew lower, to not be detected by possible enemies, and he approached the closest gate, where a small group of guards were playing a tabletop game. As soon as they felt him approach, they readied their weapons, ready to engage in battle. When Prometheus was sure that the guards' attention was on him, he gently dropped the boy on the ground, immediately flying away back to his companions. Theo turned his head back to notice the guards slowly approach the boy and bring him inside.
Good. I saved one.
Returning back to the mission, Prometheus found Zilch and Sayuri sitting on the ground near the carriage. It wasn't moving and was still covered in that thick metal armor. Many scratches were present on it, possibly indicating that his two friends had tried attacking it.
"Did you try opening it?" He asked.
They both nodded, with Zilch replying, "We tried damaging it, but it's repairing any damage we do to it. We gave up and decided to wait for you. I could get inside with my intangibility power, but I wouldn't be able to get the target out."
Prometheus shifted back into his tiger form, noticing that the signs of damage on the metal exterior were indeed slowly disappearing as if the metal was 'healing'. He swiped with his claws, managing to scratch the armor slightly, but nothing more.
Using too much force might damage our target, and we need to get them alive.
An idea sprung up into his mind, but he needed to verify something before that.
"Sayuri, how does your Soul ability work? I only noticed that it improved your slash with water in some way."
"Yes. My ability lets me use water to cut through anything. My master taught me that water can be strong enough to cut through steel. If you're suggesting that I use it here, I've already tried. It didn't work."
Theo scratched his tiger ears on a nearby tree, thinking, Maybe she could focus the water on a smaller area, increasing its pressure?
"Zilch, can you get inside and give us an overview of who's inside and in what positions?"
"Yes, of course!" Replied the worm, jumping into the carriage, and activating his power. The worm became transparent and phased through the vehicle. A moment later, he came out.
"Our target is on this side," He nodded toward one side of the carriage, "and there are two guards, tier-four, next to her. She's a tier-three herself. On the other side, there's another human, tier-zero."
Prometheus nodded, looking at Sayuri, "Try doing this. Instead of spreading the jet of water all throughout the blade, focus it all on the tip, and let all your Influence shoot from there."
Sayuri seemed confused for a moment before nodding and moving to the side of the carriage opposite to their target, holding her katana's tip pointed at it. She then focused once again, moving her Influence from her Soul into her weapon. It seems much weaker than when she was fighting that woman.
The samurai then followed Theo's advice and focused all her Influence on the tip of her weapon, releasing a highly pressurized jet of water, which began to cleanly cut through the armor. Sayuri seemed surprised but immediately after regained her composure, slowly moving her katana to cut a neat entrance into the caravan.
Let's hope that doesn't injure our target.
---
Giuseppe sighed heavily, glancing at the time on his phone. The battery was almost empty, and no connection was present. He couldn't distract himself with social media like he usually did. He was riding on the carriage with a certain 'Lady Celestia', but that didn't matter to him. On the edge of his vision, he thought he had seen movement, like a ghost or something, but that also held no importance in his mind. It had been a whole day since he had woken up in the middle of a blue forest, where he had experienced his first mental breakdown. It was there that he had met this noble-looking woman who took him in worriedly after seeing the blood on his shirt and jeans.
The last memories of when he had been in his room, in his house, flashed in his mind. I was holding a gun, and... I remember that I tried to shoot myself with it. Why didn't it work?
Everything after that had been foggy, almost like his memories in between shooting the gun and arriving here had been locked away somewhere. A weird visual hallucination had invaded his mind twice already, the first time being a message that would fit in a videogame as an introduction to new players, with a title associated with it. The second time, when he had succeded in splitting his skull open on a random rock, the same hallucination told him his body had 'awakened a power' with it saying it was 'immortality', or something.
Nothing of that mattered.
Giuseppe looked at the ground, bags under his eyes. His hair was long and unkept, with his spotty beard making him look older than he truly was. A thin and untrained frame held the large and round head. Being eighteen and looking like someone in their thirties was another thing that he added to the list of things he hated about himself. The woman in front of him worriedly looked at him and even tried engaging in conversation, but unfortunately, he couldn't understand a word that she was saying. He wouldn't have replied, anyway.
Is this the afterlife? Is this hell, punishing me for wasting my life?
Two medieval-looking guards stood by each side of the woman, crossing their arms defensively. The tired Giuseppe sighed once again, attracting an annoyed scoff from the guard on the right. He didn't understand how they had enough energy to even get annoyed. Giuseppe barely felt like anything, a void in his chest being the only thing he was experiencing.
A sharp sound to his left caught his attention. The other three people glanced in the same direction, watching a jet of water shoot from a hole in the carriage, slowly moving upwards. It grazed Giuseppe's skin and cut it cleanly like a knife through butter. He watched the injured spot on his forearm with fascination, admiring the vibrant flesh underneath. A moment later, his skin reattached itself in place, removing any trace that any injury had ever happened. One of the guards yelled in panic, moving to cover the door with a shield, trying to prevent the water from injuring the woman. She hid behind the closest guard's back. The young man from Earth noticed that a drop of water had flown and hit the woman's cheek, but no injury appeared. Instead, a streak of blood appeared on the guard's face, the one on the other side.
They're cutting an entrance, realized Giuseppe. He saw the jet of water moving upwards, cutting a door-sized opening in the reinforced carriage. The two guards had armed themselves in the meanwhile, wielding large halberds. He thought they looked cool. When the entrance was finally complete, the ones outside removed it forcefully, throwing the chunk of metal away.
On the other side, he saw weird things. They were most probably hallucinations once again, but he studied them regardless. A tall, lanky person held a katana and wore a sunhat. No, it was humanoid in shape, but it wasn't a person. It had dark green skin and didn't have a neck. On its face, two almond-shaped black dots were the only facial characteristics.
Behind it, a giant grey worm with skin that looked like stone stood there, with a circular mouth full of sharp teeth, all of them dripping with fresh blood. A moment later, a massive blue tiger entered through the entrance and grabbed the closest guard by the neck, dragging him outside. Giuseppe couldn't see what happened, but going by the screams of desperation, it couldn't have been anything good.
I hope they get me as well.
The other guard placed himself in front of the woman, raising his weapon defensively. He couldn't use it effectively in the small space inside the carriage, so it looked a bit awkward. A moment later, the tiger entered the carriage again and dragged the other guard by the foot, completely ignoring the halberd strike that was cleanly separating its skull. The same sets of screams followed soon after, leaving Giuseppe alone with the woman, who was covering her mouth and sobbing loudly.
The green humanoid monster jumped inside the carriage and moved its sword to hit Giuseppe. Upon seeing his complete lack of reaction, it stopped the blade just on the skin's surface. He studied the sword, admiring its beauty.
That looks like an anime sword. Cool.
He then grabbed the blade with his bare hands, which began bleeding, and pushed it deeper into his neck. Right as the sword pierced the skin, the monster removed its weapon from him, and a weird feeling appeared in Giuseppe's mind, like another mind had entered his own.
"Human. Do you wish to die?" The new voice asked.
Giuseppe instinctually knew it came from the samurai monster, so he replied mentally, "Yes."
He saw the creature in front of him nod solemnly, and readying its sword for another strike. Faster than he could see, the sword passed through his neck, making him lose sensation of the rest of his body. He only felt his neck, and it was cold. It was freezing. It felt like the coldest thing he had ever experienced. Then, it became hot. Unbearably hot. Even then, Giuseppe smiled. His vision moved around, and he felt his head hit the ground below. He saw his decapitated body sagging down the carriage seats.
His mind was still functioning for the moment, and he felt another mind join in, shouting, "Stop! What did you do?! He's from Earth!"
The samurai sheathed its sword, and replied to the other voice, "He desired death. I gave it to him."
The tiger got inside the carriage once again, getting stuck inside the small space. It looked at Giuseppe's head curiously and sighed.
"Whatever, too late now. Grab the woman, we're leaving."
A moment later, he felt his head floating upwards, slowly moving towards his body. The tiger immediately moved its eyes, piercing him with that predatorial gaze. It was observing every detail, Giuseppe was sure of it. A moment later, he could feel his body again, as if he hadn't been decapitated a second ago. The samurai picked up the well-dressed woman, who began screaming to be let down.
"What was that?" The tiger asked him.
Giuseppe's hope of finally ending his suffering vanished, like every hope he'd ever had in his life. He didn't even bother replying to the monster in front of him, instead opting to close his eyes and shut off his mind.
"That wasn't a soul ability. That was a power! Like Zilch's! I'll take this guy with us as well."
Giuseppe felt his body being picked up, and transported somewhere else. Once again, that didn't matter. Nothing did.