Prometheus sighed. Regardless of how much he tried, the sensation deep in his mind didn’t go away. As he was in the middle of a fight, he turned his attention to his cells. They all transformed into a bunch of photons and shot into the surroundings, illuminating every corner of the yellow forest. It looked like if the sun had appeared in the middle of the lushing vegetation. He could see the four assassins stumble in slow-motion, as he sped up his mental processes, while he himself prepared to finish them off.

Coming to my home to offer me an alliance, while surrounding me with assassins? What did they expect?

Before his enemies could adapt, Theo turned back and re-materialized his main body, sending forward a spike of bone from his palm, squarely hitting the tier-seven elven assassin on the neck. Strangely, unlike the tier-sixes, the spike didn’t go through his neck. It didn’t stop, either. Prometheus felt a hint of Influence emanate from the robe they were wearing, and it felt familiar. Specifically, it felt like the Influence that came out from portals and whatnot, like the ones that Eaxminer Brown, the capybara monster back during the exams, used. The strike went through the robe like it was a portal.

Interesting. They send my attack somewhere else then?

Theo noticed how his enemies were stepping back dozens of meters at a time, taking out vials of glowing liquids and drinking them with hurried gestures. Turning his vision back, he managed to witness Sayuri decapitate an assassin with her katana with a clean, horizontal strike, while Zilch exploded from the ground and ate the legs of his opponent, killing him soon after. Prometheus fixated a bit too long on how the red of the blood contrasted with the yellow leaves, creating a striking and powerful coloration. Then, his Soul asked, “Do you wanna use another ability?”

Theo shook his head. “They’re too weak. I haven’t really pushed myself with these guys,”

“You shouldn’t underestimate them. You’ll get killed before you realize,”

Prometheus waved his hand dismissively. They hadn’t dealt any true damage to him, so he saw no reason to worry or even put in more effort than should be needed. Even if he wanted, he couldn’t have focused completely on the two assassins. His thoughts always returned to the same memory: The flesh monsters. A surge of anger flew from his Core towards his limb, and they exploded in flames, his Elemental Shapeshifting skill activating reflexively. Prometheus turned back to the two tier-sevens, who had finally stopped retreating and were looking at him with slow movements. Zilch and Sayuri joined him at his sides.

“Why are you taking it easy? Are you playing with them?” Zilch asked. Prometheus hummed and replied, “Maybe. I don’t even know what to think or how to feel. Should I just kill them, do you think?”

Sayuri kept her sword up in a defensive stance, while she replied, “They attacked us first. We have the right to defend ourselves from such honorless cowards,” Zilch nodded in agreement.

Prometheus nodded and continued, “Very well. Please let me take care of it,”

Both the Deathworm and the Bamboo samurai nodded and walked off to the side, sitting down and looking at the scene with curious eyes. His two enemies were looking between the three monsters, still indecisive as ever. Why are they not doing anything?

Saul was the one to break the silence, “They’re probably waiting to see what else you can do. They’re very wary of your shoulder cannon. I would suggest trying to…”

“I don’t need any advice, Saul. Not for such weaklings,”

His soul simply nodded. The shapeshifter removed the cannon from his shoulder and put the red metal into his inventory. Locking eyes with the elves, he sent a mental communication to them, “Your Leader is dead. Most of your unit is gone. Why do you fight?”

He saw both of them stagger momentarily with the daggers in their hands, and a minute later, one of them replied, “It is our duty,”

“Who’s enforcing it? You could return to your base right now, and live another day,”

He heard a grunt from the elf on the right, stockier and shorter than the other one. “Yes. We could. We won’t,”

The shapeshifter sighed and took on a combat form while wielding the red-Multiweapon, in the shape of a long spear. Releasing fire from his ankles, he exploded forward, aiming straight for the eye of the shorter elf. Since he had stopped brightening the surroundings, the shadows had returned. The elves took advantage of that and fell down their respective shadows. Before his spear even managed to get close, he immediately rotated his torso and threw his spear at a particular spot where he had felt some disturbance in the local Influence. His spear flew with a shockwave behind it, and the two-ton object hit true.

The spear completely obliterated the left arm of the taller elf in an explosion of blood, muscle, and bone. It didn’t stop there, as it went through multiple trees behind that, destroying each and every one of them. Theo nodded, satisfied with his attack. Then, a dagger went straight through his neck, bypassing all armor and defenses, almost cleanly decapitating the shapeshifter. The other elf had attacked him from behind, but he was much faster than before. His Soul was also emanating so much influence Theo had to question if he really was a tier-seven. The other elf, the injured one, lowered his head and whispered too quietly for Theo to listen, and afterward, his Soul received the same increase in Influence capacity.

The injured elf disappeared from the shadows and reappeared behind Theo, stabbing him dozens of times on the torso with a dagger that had such a dense coating of [Enhancement] that his blade went through Theo’s armor like it was paper. Twelve stabs, all of them hitting where the main organs would be in a human. Thankfully, Theo didn’t have any organs.

What happened? Why are they so much stronger?

Saul answered him, thankfully, “I think they made a deal with their Souls. For such a massive upgrade, they must have sacrificed something truly immense,”

The two assassins disappeared, returning into the distance, warily looking at the shapeshifter. Prometheus clutched his right fist and looked at it with silent eyes. At tier four, he was able to easily keep up with tier sevens. I am strong.

He felt a snake of Influence start to devour his insides, like an acid that was spreading throughout his body. The elves had clearly used some technique for that. Prometheus simply regenerated the lost tissues faster than they were destroyed. He turned back, looking at them. Theo shaped exhausts all around his limbs, ejecting fire from them to reach insane speeds, so he did that to explode forwards in a shockwave, aiming his left fist at the injured elf. He dodged the punch with a sidestep while aiming another dagger at Theo’s torso.

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The other elf was throwing a kick at the same time, aiming for Theo’s head instead. The two strikes flew forward, cutting the air with a high-pitched sound, making contact with his armor. At least, that’s what they probably thought. Theo’s armor exploded into mist the moment it was hit by the elves, but he still kept the rest of his body solid. His fist was directed at the other elf, the one with two arms, and it connected to his stomach. Theo decided to try something new with [Enhancement]. Normally, it acted as a barrier to either strengthen someone’s defenses, but it could also be used offensively. What if..?

He heard bones crack under his fist, and before the elf could fly off from the immense force used, Theo’s Influence from [Enhancement] penetrated the enemy’s skin and shattered into thousands of sharp fragments, resembling how grenades work. Part of the force had been mitigated thanks to the weird properties the dark robes had to transport energy and mass elsewhere, but it wasn’t enough.

The assassin flew hundreds of meters into the air, ragdolling to the ground, and rolling to get better footing. Theo’s vision allowed him to see how he had mangled the elf’s insides with that use of [Enhancement]. The other elf moved too fast for Theo to react, and this time, he moved his dagger in a downward strike, as if he were beheading someone. The dagger went from Theo’s left shoulder and ended above his right hip, cleanly separating the shapeshifter’s body in two. The strike revealed Theo’s Core, which was thankfully unharmed. His two halves fell onto the ground with a wet splash, and he could see the two enemies immediately capitalize on that.

The elf who received Theo’s fragmentation attack shouted at his friend and pointed at the shapeshifter’s Core. I guess they figured it out. Before his enemies flashed forward to destroy his Core, Theo activated another ability. A USB stick appeared on the ground, and he immediately put it in his neck. The two elves were just half a meter away from his Core. They were definitely strong enough to destroy it, with their upgraded Souls.

Unfortunately for them, it wouldn’t be that simple. A heavy object exploded out of the ground from behind them, deep red in color. A red spiral, rotating in the air, moved too fast for his enemies to react, so it impaled the two-armed elf and dragged him along into the distance, leaving Theo to fend off the one-armed assassin. Surprisingly, he didn’t turn to look at what had happened to his friend, instead, he stabbed downwards with as much Influence as possible into a single strike aiming straight for Theo’s Core.

A spike of newfound anxiety rose in the shapeshifter’s mind. As the dagger flew downwards, resembling an executioner’s axe, Theo tried to move aside.

He was too slow.

Right as the tip of the dagger penetrated the metallic Core, the red spiral returned toward Prometheus, aiming at the elf’s center of mass. He dodged at the last second and jumped backward multiple times, fending off the flying weapon with incredible reflexes. Theo joined in with his regenerated body, using the spiral as a distracting weapon. After ten whole minutes of the same fight going on, the shapeshifter’s fist connected with the assassin’s liver, effectively ending the battle. The elf fell down on his knees, breathing deeply. The fight was over, so Theo stopped attacking. His enemy looked back at where the other elf had been killed by the red spiral, a massive chunk torn off at the torso.

“The Supreme Land will…take revenge…for this.” The elf said, taking out a spherical object from his pocket. Before he could get any weird ideas, Theo’s hand flashed forward and grabbed the object, studying the dense Influence inside of it.

“A bomb. Useless. Now, die,” Theo chopped off the elf’s head with a sideways strike of his hand. He had almost died a minute ago, but his ability saved him. As the six minutes of the ability ran out, the red spiral stopped moving and fell to the ground, so Theo walked over to it and put it into his inventory.

He looked at the bodies. Unmoving. They had died. Their hearts stopped beating, and blood wouldn’t go to their brains anymore, thus cutting off their consciousness. All of their memories, past experiences, and events were deleted from history, in just a handful of minutes. Theo looked at his hands. Blood soaked them like he was wearing crimson gloves. Death was a concept that he didn’t really understand. Why were humans so afraid of it? Why would they live their life trying their best to avoid it? Not all of them were like that, such as the assassins.

They had thrown themselves at him despite the large risk of death. Theo felt his Soul try to talk to him, but he ignored it and began walking back toward the cave. Zilch and Sayuri silently followed right behind him, not uttering a single word. Theo stepped over the guts of one of the elves, and his foot squished them into a red paste. The shapeshifter began absorbing the biomass and extracting the Cores, as they were fairly high-tier. Before he could jump into the chasm, Zilch slithered next to him and initiated a mental connection, “Are-are you sure it was a good idea to kill those people? We could have made an ally. Now we have the Monster Army, the Kingdom, and the elves against us,”

Theo turned back to his friend and shifted into a reptile shape, armored with metallic spikes all over, growing over three meters tall and twelve long. It was probably the largest shape he had ever taken, thanks to the various bonuses. Theo then replied, “They sent assassins around us. Maybe it was to force us to join them, maybe it was to kill us in case we refused, but it doesn’t matter now. We killed them, and we need to be ready to be attacked once again in the future.”

Prometheus jumped inside the chasm, landing on the bottom with a loud crash that caused tremors all around and lifted a massive cloud of dust into the air. Walking inside one of the caves, he sat down and sighed heavily. In the past, motivation came easily to him, as he had just needed to take actions to either find or protect his owners. But now? He didn’t feel like doing anything. So, he closed his eyes, and turned off his systems.

- - -

Hours passed, and the shapeshifter finally woke up. His internal timer told him that the Unsafe Hours were in one hour. He walked outside, more from boredom than anything else, seeing Sayuri and Zilch sparring against each other. The deathworm was using his Earth golems to ambush and strike the samurai at difficult angles, such as from behind her, while circling her at the same time. She still managed to evade every attack with surprising grace, and her wooden arm seemed to work somewhat decently, albeit clunkily.

Prometheus’ massive frame caused small shocks in the ground with every step he took, so both of his friends turned their heads to look at him. Giuseppe was also spectating the match, so he also looked at Prometheus. Before any of them could interact with him, he retreated back into the cave and turned off his mind once again. He didn’t have the motivation to do anything. Activities that he once found fun and enjoyable, now gave him absolutely no positive emotions.

Days passed and Theo continued to evade talking to the others, mostly spending his time inside the cave, motionless. He wasn’t much different from the elves he had killed. Living beings resembled statues after being killed, becoming nothing more than inanimate objects. The shapeshifter compared himself to a statue, mostly in how useless both of them were. At least the elves had had some driving factor, some motivation to make them want to live life. He had won the battle against them, but they had died following their true and ultimate goal of fighting against him. While Theo? He had lost everything. He had lost his reason to live due to that fleshy thing. The memory of the creature sent a surge of unbridled anger through the large reptile’s mind.

That monster took Theo’s family, alongside his reason to live. It had taken everything, and he couldn’t do anything about it. This…is not fair. Why did it happen to me? Why?

The memory of trying to hit the monster, before being stopped by an indestructible barrier, preventing him from doing anything, ate at his insides. It was like acid sprouted from his Core and propagated around his body, devouring everything. That thing had caused this. That monster had caused Theo all this pain, so sharp that he could barely think straight, and removed his will to live. Its sarcastic behavior, with the game-like show it puppeteered. All of those ate away at his consciousness, growing a seed inside of his mind. Saul frowned and tried to speak, but stopped soon after.

Prometheus got up. It was the start of the Unsafe hours, and his friends had all gone to sleep. He silently moved outside, feeling the sense of wrongness in the air. Remembering the book that the Administrator had given him, he took it out. He finally studied its exterior for the first time. It had yellowed-out pages and dull pink covers made of some kind of leather. Weird symbols were written on its front cover, but the longer Theo looked at them, the less sense they made. They shifted like waves in the ocean, always eluding his vision and comprehension. Nonetheless, his Supernality sense told him that it was an anomalous object, and he could use it to read about other anomalies if what the Administrator had said was true.

The shapeshifter opened up the first page and read;

Within the labyrinth of forgotten knowledge, a relic slumbers, its form veiled in the mists of obscurity. An artifact of whispers, it stands sentinel, bridging the chasm between the known and the unknown.

Whispers echo through its ethereal corridors, murmurs from realms beyond mortal comprehension. Frequencies dance upon its dial, each a thread in the tapestry of existence, woven with the strands of time.

To those who dare to listen, it offers glimpses of worlds unseen, echoes of past and future intertwined in a delicate dance of cosmic symphony. Yet heed its call with caution, for within its depths lies a truth shrouded in mystery.

Inscribed upon its ancient surface are sigils of unfathomable power, gateways to realms beyond the grasp of mortal minds. But tread lightly, for with each revelation comes the burden of understanding, a weight that few can bear.

Theo blinked slowly and thought, I have no idea what any of this means. But it’s still telling me where to find this. I can feel a rough presence on the horizon. He tried flipping pages and the sensation was gone. It was like he ‘knew’ where the object was. That’s convenient. I guess I’ll go and check this out. The next morning, he warned his friends that he would be gone for a while, and he departed.