~~~Stanley~~~
Debuff Gained: [Aura of the Docile Feast]
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
Stanley noted the debuff when it first appeared, but it didn't feel important enough to worry about. Instead, he watched the others fight the monster he'd warned them about. He had tried to kill it before it arrived, but the thing had some kind of premonition and teleportation ability... and now he just... didn't care.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
They lost the fight, and Stanley followed along when they left the room. He had nothing better to do. He even turned off his Soul Sight when the monster told him to. Because... why not? Plus, it was probably better not to look at the thing. Its soul was a mess of other souls, thousands of them, and it was... bad. It was how he knew it was a monster. Nothing could have a soul like that and not be a monster. All the terrible things he'd thought about his own soul, and he now knew how very much worse it could be. Or he would have if he cared.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
That notification also kept popping up. Over and over. But he didn't care about it any more than anything else. There was something wrong with his thinking—he knew that much—but he couldn't muster enough effort to do anything about it. Not even when he realized the monster was a cannibal with a veritable feast stockpiled in this place. Which made sense, given that soul...
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
Of course, the cannibal was a liar, too. It said it didn't want people to suffer, and while the bodies appeared at peace, the souls in this place were in a perpetual state of agony and horror. Their screaming was almost annoying, but only almost. It was kind of nice, honestly. Not caring was so much easier than the alternative. So what if the souls were screaming? It wasn't his problem, and it was easy enough to tune them out.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
That changed when the monster told him to drop Caffeine.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
Ignoring the screams was one thing, but taking away Caffeine's bed? That wasn't possible. So he said as much to the monster.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
It didn't like that, but Stanley didn't care. Instead, he watched June do a bunch of stuff he hadn't even known she could. She even used a psionic ability... which was a new sensation. Not that he really cared about any of it. Did he?
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
Did he care? He cared about a lot, didn't he? He had... friends. A family. He must care about them, right? He cared about Caffeine...
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
That thought stuck in his head and wouldn't go away. Not even when he watched June reflect Brett's domination back on the man, nor when she agreed to help the monster get its hands on Zeke in exchange for her life.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
The feeling got stronger when the monster tried to touch Caffeine. Stanley didn't fully understand why, but he knew it couldn't do that. So he stopped it. The monster didn't like that either, but there was nothing Stanley could do. Caffeine had to be protected. There couldn't be any question about that. It was absolute.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
That led to another problem.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
The monster wanted to kill him when he refused to let it touch Caffeine, but he had to protect Caffeine and wouldn't be able to do that if he died. So he needed to stop the monster—except he never had to. Caffeine solved the problem himself by growling at it.
You have felt the Wrath of the Beast Lord.
Debuff Removed: [Aura of the Docile Feast]
Buff Removed: [Still Mind of the Psionic Beast]
A lot of feelings rose into his mind in the total silence that followed Caffeine's growl. Relief came first, an all-powerful and overwhelming relief that Caffeine was finally awake. Relief that Caffeine was truly okay after all this time.
He stayed with that feeling for what felt like a long time. As long as he could, and the entire time, his gaze remained locked on Caffeine. The entire time, only one other thought was in his mind; his intense longing to see Caffeine's big brown eyes finally open and look back at him.
Unfortunately, that never happened. The pug never opened his eyes or lifted his head. In fact, he did nothing after his growl, even if he'd woken up. He had woken up... hadn't he?
Debuff Gained: [Aura of the Docile Feast]
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
The debuff helped mute the bitter disappointment of not seeing Caffeine open his eyes. Still, it was better than nothing. Caffeine had done something. That had to mean he was recovering. Right?
Stanley didn't care about anything again—anything other than Caffeine, that is. He still knew something was wrong with that, but he barely noticed as he watched Caffeine sleep. He didn't care what else was happening around him.
Not until the monster tried to stab the little dog sleeping in his lap. That action brought another emotion rising to drown out all other feelings or rational thought.
RAGE.
Debuff Removed: [Aura of the Docile Feast]
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
His psionic punch caught the monster, plus a handful of the strung-up people behind him, and sent them all into and through a concrete wall. Stanley followed them through the wall, one hand resting on Caffeine in his lap and the other outstretched, millimeters away from ripping and tearing this monster into pieces.
The humans caught in his attack didn't survive, their screaming souls winking out almost as one, but Stanley didn't care. He didn't even care that this thing had mind-controlled him. He only cared about one thing now. One thing, and one thing only. Killing the monster that had dared to attempt to hurt Caffeine.
All of his fear for the pug over the past few days. All of his worry about how long Caffeine had been asleep. All his fear about what that god might have done to the pug. All of his guilt over being the reason Caffeine had needed to face off with a god. And now his despair that Caffeine still hadn't opened his eyes. Stanley poured all of it into his rage, and he pointed all of that rage at the monster in front of him.
A single grasping finger brushed against the human-looking monster's cheek, and the psionic power cloaking his finger dug a furrow into its soon-to-be dead face.
It vanished before he could finish splitting its head in half.
Stanley reversed course instantly, spinning and lashing out again at almost the same instant the monster appeared behind him. His hand didn't make contact this time, but his mind was faster, and he drove the thing into the floor hard enough to shatter cement clear down through the foundation.
Its flesh compressed under the blow, skin splitting wide, blood, bones, and organs bursting through in a spray of...
Once again, the monster vanished, and once again, Stanley was on it the instant it appeared. He moved faster than he ever had before, holding nothing back.
His aggressive pursuit had consequences. He could feel the shockwaves of his movements cracking cement and deforming steel in his wake, never mind what they were doing to the cannibal's human captives.
None of that mattered, though, and deep in the back of his mind, Stanley considered it a mercy to end their suffering. Deep, deep in the back of his mind. Because he had much more important priorities at the moment, and he knew the fight was far from over.
Because this time, the monster fought back when it reappeared as a pulped mess of blood and bone.
The gore didn’t sit still, and Stanley saw the dozen spears of blood launch toward him even as the rest of its flesh pulled itself back together in mere moments. The spears shattered against the wall of his will, and the magical barrier it erected in his path performed no better. But it all slowed him down enough for a sphere of lightning to manifest around the recovered monster.
Stanley didn't fear the magic, but he still stopped at the edge of the lightning field thanks to a premonition showing him bolts of electricity arcing into the pug in his lap if he'd gone any closer.
The unrealized future only fueled his rage, and through it, his next strike. Where he crushed everything surrounding his enemy into an infinitesimal point.
Black Hole
Sure, he might not be able to summon a black hole like Quinn, but he still tried his damnedest to create one the old-fashioned way. By crushing every scrap of matter into a singularity. His will was absolute. Nothing would escape. Nothing could escape.
Unfortunately, his will wasn't as absolute as he wanted, and it didn't quite work; the monster escaped. But it wasn't for nothing. For a single instant, he'd held back its teleportation with willpower alone—long enough to feed its legs, pelvis, and part of its stomach into the singularity. He could do it again. He only needed to be faster. He only needed to be stronger. He only needed more rage!
The flying torso was already regrowing new bits and pieces when it appeared behind him, and this time it came in hot. Literally.
Stanley retreated from the supernova that exploded at his back. He raced ahead of the shockwave for a single instant, then reversed course, parting the wave of fire and force around him, refusing to let even a lick of flame get through the wall of his will and touch Caffeine.
He had to dodge sideways amidst the flames to avoid a spray of arcing lightning, then again to avoid a glowing yellow arrow that multiplied into hundreds of arrows. He tanked the laser beams from the monster's eyes with his sleeve, followed by the flesh of his arm, then sent out an unavoidable grid of cutting power the moment it was within his domain.
CUT
The domain gave him enough of an edge for his power to reach the monster before it could flee, and he diced the front half of its body into cubes.
It wasn’t enough to finish the job, and the creature retaliated by sending out its blood in a spray of crimson blades that carved through steel and cement alike. Not that he expected it to be that easy. Not that he wanted it to be that easy, either. He wanted it to hurt before it died. He wanted it to hurt bad!
So he made his desire a reality. He pursued the monster around its lair, destroying chunks of the building as well as pieces of the creature itself. He evaded, blocked, or simply tanked everything from fire, ice, lightning, and acid, along with a myriad of effects he didn't even have names for. He blasted through countless barriers and shields that the monster put in his path, magical and mundane.
Nothing stuck—to him or it—though Stanley's clothes proved the more durable of the two, until he was eventually chasing a naked man around the factory. Or at least the pieces of one. Assuming you could call the monster a man. Which it wasn't. It only pretended to be one.
Along the way, his hot, bloodthirsty rage cooled enough to take stock of the situation, and he'd gotten a good look at how it was surviving so much punishment, aside from an insane regeneration factor. Its soul carried what he guessed were thousands of other souls within itself. Like a stomach of souls. Living souls. Living, screaming souls.
Each time his attack would have or should have killed the thing, one of those souls would rise from within to replace the monster's soul and die in its place. It felt an awful lot like fighting the undead, but worse. These weren't zombie souls getting sacrificed. They were living human souls... well, sort of living. From what he'd seen so far, Stanley was pretty sure that most of them were only pieces of souls.
The truly terrible thing was that they felt... aware. Screaming nonstop but aware. They felt pain when the monster used them as shields. They felt fear when they died in its place... though it wasn't all bad. Plenty of those fearful, dying souls also felt relief at the end. They knew something about where they were and what was happening, and they welcomed the escape, even if it meant their end.
He didn't know if it had literally eaten an entire person for each of those souls, but he wasn't ruling it out. The alternative was worse.
Stanley had seen a lot of its captives with missing pieces of their flesh. What if it had taken chunks of their soul as well? Was he damning people that could still be saved? Or were they already doomed?
Distantly, he was aware of June fleeing. She'd almost made it to the far side of the building, and what's more, she'd taken Quinn and Pervert with her. Also Brett, whose soul felt... strange.
She'd reflected his domination, and the man was essentially dead, but not completely. His soul remained in his flesh, or at least part of his soul. It was definitely dimmer than before, and it felt... flat. Nothing but faint echoes of the man he used to be.
It was fine that they ran—good even. Because this was his fight. This monster was his, and he would be the one to kill it. Also, he would probably need to kill June, not to mention the Brett puppet, at some point... because he hadn't dropped a core yet.
Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress
Mental Fortress has reached the Level 50 Threshold. No Evolution Available.
Mental Fortress Upgraded to Level 50 (Advanced)
He'd ignored those notifications, and he continued to ignore them as he pursued the end of a monster that refused to accept its inevitable reality.
Stanley stayed close to the monster whenever he could, because it was the only way to hit it hard and fast enough that it couldn't teleport away. It definitely had a sort of premonition, but either the skill was far weaker than Stanley's, or alternatively, it simply couldn't react fast enough.
It was hard to say since Stanley wasn't using Still Mind. He shouldn't have any mental speed boosts... unless his domain was making up the difference? Or the monster was simply weak. At least when it came to reaction time, because it wasn't weak in any other aspect. The thing was a cockroach that refused to die.
Not only was it cheating death, but cutting its flesh felt akin to cutting through a D-grade's flesh, even though it wasn't actually D-grade, and its physical strength felt equally powerful. It had more magic and skills than should be possible—far more, though he assumed the vast majority of those were stolen from the people it had... consumed. An easy deduction after hearing it blabber.
The battle evoked memories of his encounters with the undead, especially the D-grade, but it also brought back memories of his battle with Sam, which had required every ounce of his concentration. The primary difference between those fights and this was that they had fought like actual warriors.
Both the skeleton and Sam had used only a handful of abilities, but they'd used their powers like scalpels, with finesse and skill. Their abilities felt honed, whereas this thing was a brute. It simply threw everything at him and hoped something would stick.
It had wasted its time carving up helpless weaklings and stealing their skills. Skills he suspected were still all low level. It had never learned to fight with any of those skills. Hell, it probably hadn't even used most of them before. Something Stanley was immensely grateful for. He didn't want to imagine this monster with the fighting skill Sam had shown him...
Because of that, he wasn't too worried. He could and would kill this monster a thousand times if that was what it took. Though he suspected neither of them would last that long. Fighting at full steam took a lot out of a person, and Stanley's hunger was growing.
Debuff Upgraded: [Famished]
He'd brought some food along, but it didn't last long. Not for someone like him. Sure, there was plenty more meat around, but only if you didn't mind eating human flesh, which Stanley very much preferred not to do.
Unfortunately, his opponent didn't share the same dietary restrictions, and its next teleport wasn't to attack. Instead, it teleported to the opposite end of the building and was already busy chowing down on a human in the second it took Stanley to catch up. It also accelerated the eating process by shapeshifting its head into something with a larger mouth. Much larger. And reptilian... was that its true form?
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He forced it to flee from the meal, but its unfortunate target was little more than a pair of legs by that point.
Stanley spared a glance for the fresh meat as he passed... He'd eaten human flesh before, as much as he didn't like to think about it, and he would do it again if he had to. But only if he really had to. Life and death stakes.
This wasn't that. He could hunt some animals easily enough, even while he was under attack, but what he didn't want to do was give the monster a chance to escape, and it might very well do that if he went hunting. There was no guarantee it would chase him into a beast lair... and going back over his memories while under the influence, it was almost a certainty that it wouldn't go anywhere near a beast lair.
He'd never seen this monster before—there was no way he'd forget a soul like this if he had—which meant it had a way to hide from him. The last thing he needed was for it to escape and go back into hiding. He had enough nightmares lurking out there in the dark...
Which meant he needed to end this before it was too late.
Stanley had an idea for that, one he'd already been working on ever since his night with Eve. He hadn't progressed on that front since, but what better time to figure it out than in the middle of a fight when everything was on the line?
The trick was to add his soul into his psionics. Not simply as an attribute booster, but directly into his attacks. He knew how strong his soul was. He'd seen it firsthand when fighting the D-grade, not to mention the fact that he could unlock and increase other people's soul attributes merely by exposing them to his leaking soul. No one else could do anything similar.
So what if, instead of cutting something with his mind, he could cut it with his soul? Or ideally, both at the same time? His soul was stronger than anyone else's, so did that mean he could cut someone's soul directly? He was pretty sure he'd done as much to kill the D-grade skeleton... though ideally, he wouldn't almost destroy himself in the process this time.
There had to be a way. Eve had figured out a way...
His contemplations and attempts ended abruptly when the monster he was chasing suddenly swelled with power. Well, more power than it already had. He caught a single glimpse of disgusting blood-red light bursting from every inch of its exposed skin, which was all of it. The light matched its soul but wasn't exactly the same. It wasn't its soul, but something else. Something horrible. An extension of the monstrous thing that was this being's entire purpose and reason for existence.
Looking at it gave Stanley the same feelings as gazing upon its soul, and they weren't nice feelings.
Its soul looked like human blood. Not red, but human blood. There shouldn't have been a distinction between types of blood—Stanley could never tell the difference—but there was now. Same thing with the smell. It smelled like human flesh, like raw and bloody flesh awaiting the butcher's knife, but also simultaneously like human meat roasting over the fire. The worst part of that light, the absolute worst part, beyond even the sight and smell, was the taste. Merely looking at that soul, Stanley could taste it. And it was delicious. Succulent. Sickening.
Underlying all of that was a deep, abiding hunger. Only it was more than that. Hunger was the barest description for what it felt like. It was the swollen and empty belly of a child dying from starvation. It was the glutton too fat to stand on his own two feet but who never stopped eating. It was a hunger that could never be satisfied and would never be satisfied. It was... ravenous. As if its entire existence was that debuff. As if it were the actual source of the debuff...
He'd been looking at its soul this whole time, but now it drowned out everything else. Now he couldn't not see it. He couldn't not smell it. He couldn't not taste it. He couldn't not feel it.
The monster lunged, glowing claws now extending from its hands, and Stanley moved. The claws grew to follow him, extending and expanding until there was no avoiding them—well, almost no avoiding them.
Stanley sank fully into his premonitions as he spun through the air, twisting and twirling a hair's breadth from the edge. Dancing and spinning between the shredding claws as they carved through everything they touched. Metal, concrete, and flesh. Everything.
It wasn't only the glowing claws, either. The terrible light kept spreading out from the monster, expanding and sending tendrils of itself in every direction. Those tendrils touched upon every human in the place and started sucking them dry, body and soul. Stanley could see and feel the energy flowing back along the lines into the monster itself, speeding and strengthening it more with every second that passed.
For a moment, Stanley regretted not killing the captives when he had the chance, but he quickly realized that it wouldn't have mattered. Every scattered piece of flesh went into the light. Every wayward drop of blood. All of it fed the monster now, and all of it made the thing stronger, faster, and hungrier.
Stanley struck back even as he dodged. Smashing, carving, and chipping pieces off, but it was a losing game. It was healing far faster than he could hurt it. Even his domain wasn't enough to even the odds anymore. Despite that, he didn't waver. This thing would die. He knew it would die. It had to. No matter what tricks it pulled. No matter how many times it regenerated. It would die.
His hot rage had long since cooled, and Stanley held the icy ball of his anger tight in his chest. It fueled his power and drove him unrelentingly forward.
Until it wasn't enough...
He dodged a spread of shredding claws, carved apart the two he couldn't avoid, then struck out at the monster... and his premonition changed. He hadn't attacked the monster. It was fake—an illusion. A trap. He tried. He tried so hard to find a way through. But there wasn't one.
Stanley wasn't afraid to take a hit. He'd already taken plenty, and he could take as many more as were necessary to see this fight through to the end. The problem was, the attack wasn't aimed at him. It was aimed at Caffeine.
No matter how he moved. No matter what he did. Caffeine would take a hit.
The monster was deliberately targeting the helpless, sleeping pug.
In that terrible moment, Stanley's icy rage lost its chill. The ball of ice in his chest burned so white-hot that Stanley half expected his skin to catch fire. As the inevitable moment crept ever closer, and as the fire burned ever hotter, something inside him... shifted. Something aligned. Something finally clicked into place, and time stopped.
Stanley found himself inside his soul, or beside it, or looking in at it. He was within and without. He was... one with his soul. For the first time, his mind and soul perfectly aligned on a singular idea. On a singular purpose. There were no extraneous thoughts. No worries about his uncertain future or the mistakes of his past. No worries for his brother or his new family. Nothing else but what he needed to do in this one moment.
So he did that.
With a crash, time resumed, racing ever onward into the future, and Stanley reached out almost lazily with his body and mind, just as he had done countless times before. Only this time, his soul came along, like another hand extending out from the deformed orb of his soul, only it wasn't another hand. It wasn't separate. It was him—all of him—and it was enough.
Stanley touched the monster that was trying to hurt Caffeine... and sent it away. Even as he killed it.
DIE
He felt its fear even before he touched it. The monster knew death had arrived. It knew the end was here. And it was afraid.
The fear vanished when it didn't die immediately, instead substituting another to die in its place.
Stanley watched it happen and wasn't upset. It was a minor delay, nothing more. Even as it grinned up at him from the crater its body had made. All bloody smiles and gloating words that Stanley ignored. Instead, he noted that the soul substitution had to be an actual skill. A passive one at that. The entire process was far too smooth and clean to have been handled by the monster itself.
Still, the fight was over, and Stanley took a moment to acknowledge the human soul he had just condemned to death.
It was green with swirls of white and black throughout, and it smelled like a chalkboard. It had been a woman in life... and he wasn't sure how he knew that, but he knew. She'd been a woman with hopes and dreams. She had loved someone more than herself... and now it was over.
Stanley watched her go, and he didn't regret what he'd done. Death was a mercy for this soul. Because all those little things that made her who she had been were so very faint now. Almost lost beneath the screaming. A sound like someone was dragging their nails over a chalkboard. Or like a fork scratching a plate... Emotionally, it was an overpowering mix of what he could only describe as helpless despair and unrelenting horror.
Honestly, it felt like how Stanley imagined a soul trapped in hell would feel. If hell was a real thing... which it very well might be in this new world. Souls went somewhere when they died—at least most of the soul did, aside from the bits that ended up in a core. Had they always done that? Even before the system? What about the bits that went into cores?
"She wasn't lying," the monster said, now standing back on the ground, with its rotten aura still spreading through and illuminating the rubble of its former lair. "You are powerful!"
It had been jabbering the whole fight, but it was all just a lot of nonsense about how Stanley should submit and let the monster eat him, and it still didn't seem to realize that the fight was already over.
"You must know that your struggle is pointless. Accept your destiny and become one with your king!" Yeah, that was the basic gist.
Stanley didn't dwell on the question of souls for long. Only long enough for the green soul to die, whereupon it dissipated like all the rest, and he couldn't tell if it simply dispersed into the ambient background or went... somewhere else. He thought there might have been the faintest touch of relief at the end there, and he hoped it wasn't merely his imagination. I hope you found peace. Wherever you went.
"But you will dispose of that beast before kneeling at my..."
It wasn't over. Another captive soul followed the first, dying and fading away. Then another. And another.
"What... what did you do!?"
For once, Stanley didn't blame the souls for their weakness. Even he, with all his power, had fallen under its spell. This world wasn't fair. The system had screwed them all right from the start by giving so much power to such an absolute monster. Perhaps someone might have killed this thing at its inception, but even he hadn't known it existed until today, and he wasn't sure he could have killed it before tonight if he had known.
Meanwhile, the extra souls inside it kept winking out, one after another, faster and faster.
"Stop it!" the monster howled. It was finally beginning to understand the situation. Lights flashed below, and spells flew into the sky toward Stanley. The monster followed them, claws bared and growing. "I will tear out your heart and..."
Stanley extended his hand and pushed it back down, it and all of its spells. Then he clenched his fist and gathered that disgusting light back where it belonged, forcing all of its magic down until the only light was a dim red glow coming from a monster masquerading as what was now nothing more than a pitiful-looking, naked man on his knees.
"No! You can't do this!"
The devoured souls were dying by the dozens now, and Stanley let it keep talking while he pet Caffeine and looked out into the night. It was a dark sky, with no stars shining through the thick clouds. Even the moon couldn't make a dent.
Fitting for a night like this.
He knew they'd been teleported somewhere but didn't see any recognizable souls other than June and company in the distance. They were still running... Did they know where they were? Or where they were going? It didn't matter; he'd catch up in a minute. Or less than a minute at this rate.
Honestly, he was grateful to V for sending him here. Sure, he still needed to find the undead, but this monster was almost certainly what had set Nate's intuition off. It had already been strong enough to tear its way through Nate's base or the tower. Who knew how strong it might have become if left alone? V had obviously known it was here, given the teleportation circles... which begged the question. Did V send him here to die or to remove the threat? Or both?
He could forgive the latter option; this thing needed to die. Yesterday. But if V knew about this monster and was okay with it gobbling down humans left and right... then V would die right alongside their masters, no matter what.
Or was it simply part of becoming undead? Did V just no longer care about humanity, or had they never cared? They claimed to care about Sam...
Speaking of her, Stanley was definitely going to seek the woman out after this, assuming V hadn't spirited her away... He hoped not. He really didn't want to face an immortal, undead Sam, and unless she was far more of a monster than he thought, she would not condone a fucking cannibal being allowed to live and feast to its heart's content. This might even be enough to sway the woman onto their side... maybe that was how they would find the undead?
The only question he didn't get now was why tonight was the night he had to go after Sam. Was it because Caffeine needed an extra day of rest before he could growl? That had helped, but Stanley thought he would have broken free eventually. Caffeine still hadn't acted fast enough to save Brett... or was that on purpose? A part of Nate's plan?
June was another issue entirely—one he'd need to deal with, and soon. She'd hidden a major facet of her power, more than he’d originally expected, which meant she was the obvious culprit for mind-controlling those women into Brett's harem... and now she'd almost certainly copied Brett's skill as well. Wait, did that mean she might drop the skill if he killed her? Did he have two shots at it now?
He took another look in the direction she'd gone and saw that, even if she had learned the skill, she hadn't yet used it on Quinn or... whatever his name was. The pervert. Also, could Brett still use the skill while under her control? And what would happen to him if she died? His soul was still... mostly there? More than half, at least.
It was something to deal with later or let Nate deal with. After fighting a flesh-eating cannibal, he just wasn't feeling that upset about a little mind rape.
Stanley finally looked at his hand as he descended toward the screaming, dying monster below. Specifically, at the back of his hand, where the veins were all glowing a brilliant, pulsing purple. It wasn't only his hand, either. He could feel it throughout his body, like fire or acid burning through his veins. Still, he'd endured worse. This was nothing he couldn't handle, and regeneration should fix it up soon enough.
He'd been right about the power of his soul. Unfortunately, it looked like his flesh was still the weakest link. Maybe he could look into finding a high rarity skill that boosted vitality? It likely wouldn't be enough, but it would be a start.
"Stop this at once!" the monster mewled when Stanley arrived. "I am a king!"
Stanley ignored the dying thing; it was almost out of lives anyway, and instead he started clearing the rubble. Because it wasn't the only thing dying here. Some of its victims were still alive, and they'd just started screaming—actual, real-life screaming. With their voices.
He'd assumed they would all die with the cannibal, especially the ones who were missing some rather important pieces of themselves. Not to mention if it had eaten parts of their souls.
It turned out he was only partially right. Many of them still died, but not all. Stanley dug the survivors out of the rubble and found out that whatever magic was preventing the bleeding must have expired because they were bleeding everywhere now.
Some of them had no chance—too many missing pieces, including vital organs. But others could still be saved.
Sleep
Burn
Unfortunately for them, Stanley wasn't a healer, but what he could do was cauterize their bleeding stumps. He was even nice about it and put them to sleep first. Zeke or Adrian could fix them the rest of the way, though that would have to wait. As certain as he was about the inevitable end, Stanley wasn't going to leave until that thing was dead and gone. For good.
Besides, he wasn't sure how much anyone could help these people.
Every one of their souls told a rather grim tale of what they'd been through here, and Stanley wasn't sure if any of them would ever be okay again. Still, he would give them the chance. It wasn't their fault... someone powerful should have put a stop to this a long time ago. Before it ever got...
Stanley turned in alarm when he felt something impossible happening behind him.
The cannibal was finally dying, but his soul wasn't dissipating like it was supposed to. Instead, it was all flowing into a hellish-looking red core that hovered in midair above the monster's body. It hung there in the air for long seconds, even after the soul stopped flowing.
When it fell onto the lifeless body below, it punched a hole through its chest... after which the entire body started crumbling into dust from the chest outward.
It didn't take long for the entire body to collapse, and Stanley drifted aside when the light breeze started blowing the dust his way. Then the only thing left behind in the drifting dust was a brightly glowing red core.
A red core.
Cores weren't supposed to be red. Especially not that shade of red. It was a terrible shade of red, human-blood red, a shade he hadn't even known was terrible until tonight, and it certainly shouldn't have an entire soul inside it.
Stanley left the creepy thing alone and finished his triage of the wounded. It kept him busy and helped postpone the inevitable, but he still finished all too soon.
Then he was left staring at the thing and dreading what came next. He couldn't leave it here, and he had a terrible feeling about what he would see if he touched it. He knew what it was—what it had to be—and he cursed the system again for what it had done to all of them.
Finally, he pulled the core into his hand, and it came easily—almost too easily. Eagerly. Like it wanted to be touched.
It struck his hand, and Stanley let it fall back into the dirt.
That one touch was enough. More than enough. Far more. Enough to confirm his worst fears.
[Class Shard](E-grade)
Cannibal King (Mythic) - Level 145 (Expert)
Devour.
Take up the mantle of a king and consume your world.
Class Level Effects (Expert):
+50% All Effective Attributes
Requirements:
None
Class Skills: Aura of the Docile Feast (Mythic) - Level 165 (Expert) | Binding of...
Stanley gagged and heaved, but nothing more than bile came up. It wasn't the contents of the core that made him sick; he'd expected that. It was the feeling of hunger that rose inside him when he touched it. A hunger so intense it turned into nausea. A hunger strong enough to turn the smells of blood and death surrounding him into the scents of a bountiful feast.
He fled from that place, taking the wounded with him.
Only when he could barely feel that terrible soul behind him did Stanley stop and look back. He couldn't leave it there. He couldn’t let anyone or anything touch that... that thing!
So he dragged that baleful light back to himself and slipped it into his jacket pocket without letting the disgusting thing touch his skin. It sat there, heavy against his chest, a hungry, murderous little thing, whispering to him of how hungry he was and how good it would feel to have a bite. Just one bite. A small one.
Wind screamed in his ears as he flew on but did nothing to drown out the whispers, and Stanley refused to so much as glance at his slightly roasted cargo... He didn't even slow as he passed the next lair, but two birds flew out and caught up with him despite their best efforts.
His thoughts felt wild as he looked at his prey. Hah, birds! So I didn't wipe them all out after all!
The captured birds died in the next second, and he ate them raw, though without letting a drop of blood or a hint of flesh touch his tongue. He feared he would throw it back up if he did, and he really needed the sustenance... before he got any hungrier.
As he ate, he flew in the direction he'd last seen June fleeing, and it didn't take long to spot her soul ahead. He knew she felt his gaze when he saw her fear spike, and he seriously considered killing the woman and being done with the whole mess. Then more souls came into range, and he finally realized where he was.
Walter's soul permeated the tower, and he could never mistake it for anywhere else, not to mention all the other human souls filling the building. It was a good enough place to leave the wounded, though he wasn't seeing Adrian's soul... or Daryl's.
He passed June before she and the others reached the tower, and he didn't kill her, but he also didn't give her a lift. He really didn't want to deal with the woman tonight... or anyone, for that matter. He'd done enough, and now he only wanted to curl up with Caffeine and try to forget everything.
Walter appeared the instant he crossed the threshold into the tower, and the man showed up ready for war. Stanley caught the bone sword in his hand—well, mostly with his mind—and realized the butler was far stronger than he looked, but then so were most people these days. He was also furious...
"You..." Walter's eyes widened, and he pulled back. "Stanley!" Then his gaze snapped down to Stanley's breast pocket, and his hands tightened on the sword. "What vile thing have you brought into my domain!?"
Stanley didn't feel like getting into it, and he didn't want to touch or even see the damned core again. Not yet. "Where's Adrian?" He gestured at the floating naked people in various states of... amputee...ism? Butchery? Whatever. "They need..."
He trailed off at the alarm coming from Walter's soul.
"Sir," Walter said. "Nathaniel missed his check-in with Edward, and we could not contact anyone..."
No... Stanley dropped the unconscious people and was outside before they'd started falling toward the floor. It can't be! Then he ripped a hole through the sky and MOVED.
I killed the monster... I won! It's supposed to be over!