I look like a train wreck.

That was the first thought that went through Lukas’s mind as he stared at his reflection in the shining waters of the pond. His messy black hair had grown into thick bangs, hiding most of his gaunt face, yet also accentuating his sharp features. His face now looked more elongated, making his cheeks look sucked in. His stubble hadn’t grown very much, but it was beginning to feel as sharp as the edge of a business card. His eyes looked bloodshot, and he could see veins tight against his skin.

If this continues, I’ll end up looking like a vampire in no time.

“What’s a vampire?”

A creature that sucks blood.

“You mean a bat?”

Like a bat, only human. Well, actually it’s dead, and can turn into a bat…I think.

He rubbed circles on his temples. Thinking hurt, and he was done feeling pain. Then again, it was all he felt nowadays. Between suffering through Inanna’s brutal training when asleep, and fighting monsters when awake, his brain was being taxed like never before. Pain always dissipated when he woke up, but the mental exertion left a lasting mark.

“A dead human that turns into a bat? Sounds like an oxymoron.” She hummed for a moment. “Oxymoron. What a curious term. We didn’t have such peculiar terms in Akkad.”

Lukas had initially presumed that because the goddess was communicating with him directly through thought, the process bypassed lingual barriers. But now it seemed that not only was she speaking English, she was also drawing on his vocabulary.

It’s nice to see the modern tongue appreciated by a goddess. Lukas wryly grinned. Also, why’s that an oxymoron?

“Those of the dead belong within the Underworld. It is not their place to cross the veil and enter the mortal plane.”

Is that so? Lukas mused. Filing the information away for later, he reached for the cool water and splashed it over his face. Calculating the passage of time inside an anomaly was difficult on the best of days. It wasn’t as if sleep cycles were all about precision. Still, he wagered it’d been three, maybe four days since he had stepped out of the yokai territory with the intention to slay the core of this anomaly, something that Inanna had proclaimed to be within his powers. How? He had no idea.

“You are an anomaly. This cavern is an anomaly. In a battle to devour the other, the stronger will win.”

“It’s definitely not plain and simple,” Lukas retorted. “I’m just…me. That khorkhoi back then would have killed me if it weren’t for you. And there might be an endless number of beasts around. Even with my skills, there is only so much I can…”

He trailed off as a realization hit him.

If he wanted to beat the system, loopholes would have to be his focus. For whatever reason, the schema mirrored video game mechanics to a tee. To accomplish the daunting task ahead of him, he needed to stop perceiving the world around him as if the challenges were insurmountable, and instead think of it as a complex game where his job was to defeat the main boss—in this case, the omphalos of this anomaly.

Typically, the way to finish a game in the fastest time possible was to meticulously study the exploits, bugs, and features that existed in the game system and identify potential shortcuts to reach there. And he had already unlocked, so to speak, one of the biggest cheats that could allow him to maximize his growth in the shortest time possible.

Soul Siphon was an irrationally broken ability that allowed him to simply grab another’s skills, and paste them onto himself. The only problem was…he needed to figure out how to gain more Soul Capacity.

Soulscape.

SOULSCAPE

NAME

Lukas Aguilar

Type

Base Host

Level

4

Experience

529

Current Threshold

640

Utilized Soul Capacity

2129/2379

529 Experience. He needed just a little more before he’d hit 640 and then—

Lukas froze. Could—could it be that simple? Had he really not noticed it before?

“Screen,” he called out, “show me everything you’ve got on Experience.”

Experience

PREDATOR acquires Experience upon killing PREY. The quantity of Experience gained is proportional to the Soul Size of the fallen prey. Experience can be harvested into Soul Capacity depending upon the PREDATOR’s Experience Conversion Ratio.

That explained why he’d gained so much Experience after killing the khorkhoi, even though it had been Inanna who’d accomplished the feat. In a similar vein, it also explained why he had to eliminate 130 pieces of moss just to gain a single Experience point. If he were to go kill creatures that held Soul Capacity greater than him, his feat would be greater. Thus, more Experience. Thus, more Soul Capacity.

But how would he do it? How did one identify greater monsters from lesser ones?

…

…

He palmed his face.

Scan [LEVEL 2]

“I feel like an idiot.”

“About time.”

“Wait! Do you mean to say that you were just waiting for me to figure it out all this while?”

A mental scoff was his answer. “I will not babysit you, mortal. If you cannot even figure out the basics on your own, you are of little use to me.”

“There’s just one issue. Stronger monsters will mean a greater life risk for me.”

“You expect to gain strength without working for it?”

“Honestly, yeah,” he responded. He was a young man from the twenty-first century. The era of smart computing. He was now in a world where beings could routinely ignore the laws of nature he had come to accept as absolutes. And his job was to figure out the shortest path to power.

“…Explain yourself.”

Translation: she didn’t understand. That was alright. He didn’t expect her to either.

“You and I…belong to different worlds. More than the difference between mortal and divine. You have potential. We have ingenuity. You have evolution and the ability to ignore the laws of nature to transcend into becoming more. We have the determination and capacity to use the immutable laws of reality and twist them in our favor. We cannot transcend, but we can be strong.”

“By being a parasite?”

“By being smart. And by building things to do my work for me. That’s what machines are for. Soul Siphon has already granted me a way to gain skills that I would probably never have gained in the first place. All I need to do is search for the monsters that have the skills most optimal for my needs. And as for the latter…”

MONSTER PROTOTYPE: YUREI

SKILLS

LEVEL

SOUL CAP CONSUMED

Possession

1

50

Conjuration

2

500

Disintegration

2

500

“I know just the thing I need.”

Conjuration—or, as he preferred to call it, false construction—was an absurdly broken skill. The ability let him craft mana, or more particularly, ether, into a solid structure. It would be a temporary creation and would dissipate as soon as the task was complete.

To a creator, it was a fake. A cheat. An insult to the forging process.

But to a hunter? It was the ultimate arsenal.

All he needed to do was level up that particular skill to the maximum.

“For someone so caring about the sanctity of life and the soul, your approach renders other creatures as nothing but a set of skills for you to grab.”

Lukas ferally grinned. “What can I say? I’m an anomaly, right? This is what anomalies do. They devour.”

He took a deep breath, then smirked. “Activate Alpha Condition.”

And everything changed.

Space splits.

Cracks appear. Cracks diffuse. Cracks get larger. Brighter. Cracks converge. Diverge. Shatter. Reform.

His mind devolves.

Human instincts dull. Yurei instincts arise.

His perceptions are different. Not human, but colorful. They are not grayscale. He is a spirit. He is unseen. He is unfelt. Nothing can impact him for he is █████████

Yet he exists.

Yet he shapes the world.

Through creation. One just as █████████ as him.

He wants to build.

He wants to possess.

The energies within him contort as he raises them with a █████████—

“So, how does it feel?” Inanna asked.

Feel? Feeling? What was that? Sensations were physical. They belonged to the tangible world. He, on the other hand, had—

Body? Arms? Legs? Face? Skin?

He was…solid?

The dichotomy could not have been graver had he tried. No matter what he did, he could feel nothing. Not the absence of sensation, but truly nothing. There was no connection, no feeling, no hopes, no dreams, no desires. Just a cold, numbing, empty void that made the world around him seem smaller with every pointless, mechanical movement. Unlike the kasha, whose instincts wanted to burn the world down, to ignite everything and set it ablaze, the yurei made him feel hollow.

Every single moment he spent as the yurei…it was like he became less.

But that was just the beginning.

A strange sound exuded from his throat, and then Lukas realized he had lips.

“I—I feel—”

Power rose within him. It was dark and empty and reminded him of the stillness between heartbeats, of the silence that accompanied the death of a loved one, and of the nightmare that made one wake up in the middle of the night. Cold power, like frosted metal held to the neck, a fraction of an inch away from spilling warm blood.

“I feel…strong.”

He did not have hands, but they rose up. Power surged through him, but he had no guide for this kind of spell. No focus, no target, and certainly not the kind of power he was used to working with. He shoved his senses down, blanked out everything, and just focused on the strange power humming through him.

And then, he understood.

“Okay,” he breathed out. “I’m ready.”

“Go ahead,” Inanna replied. Her voice was soft. Soothing. “Imagine what you wish to create. Push the ether into it. Give your imagination form.”

Lukas focused on the most basic of implements. One that served as the first milestone between human and animal. One of the very first tools that allowed mankind to progress from lurking in caves to becoming hunters, food gatherers, and farmers.

Ether erupted out of his hand, filling the entirety of his half-clenched fist, and elongated on both sides until it was easily taller than him. He pushed more mana, and the object gained more attributes. The first prototype felt granular, almost like sand.

Sand? No, sand would not do.

He needed something harder, with far greater strength.

He focused on the feel of the rock-hard terrain beneath his feet. He thought of the strength that a crystal lattice added to an object’s physical structure. The ether element was in itself incapable of materializing by its own power. And yet in a twist of irony, its domains were along the lines of composition, dissolution, modification, separation, unification, and alteration of shapeless bodies materialized into physical form. And the clearer and more precise the knowledge, the better he could see it in his mind. Density. Mineral constituents. Lattice. Tensile strength. Weight. Sharp edges.

He opened his eyes. And stared.

And kept on staring.

“I—”

He opened his mouth, but no words came to him. The surprise overwhelmed the alien mindset he was operating with and pushed back those instincts with extreme prejudice, leaving—

“I—I created—”

“Congratulations are in order, mortal.” Inanna’s voice was rich, and…was that pride he sensed in her tone? “You have created your first implement.”

New SKILL Registered!

SKILL

LEVEL

SOUL CAPACITY CONSUMED

Conjuration

1

50

DESCRIPTION

Creation of temporary solid constructs using Ether.

He had done it. In his hand was a slim rod, with a diameter that fitted perfectly within his palm, and a length just enough to serve as a ranged weapon. One edge was curved, while the other protruded like a naked blade.

A spear.

Lukas closed his eyes and thought.

The spear dissipated into motes of silvery powder.

New SKILL Registered!

SKILL

LEVEL

SOUL CAPACITY CONSUMED

Disintegration

1

50

DESCRIPTION

Reverting Conjured Constructs into Ether.

He opened his eyes, staring at his now empty hand. There was just so much he wanted to say about it. A hundred thoughts swam in his mind, but only one managed to escape out of his lips.

“Deactivate Alpha Condition.”

Monster Prototype Yurei Deactivated

Reverting Consciousness Shift to Base Host

Enact

With a sudden jolt, Lukas found himself standing, spear in hand. His entire body was shaking, and his heart was beating at least twice as fast. Yet he could only focus on the feeling of accomplishment.

URGENT!!!

REGISTERED SKILL

LEVEL

SOUL CAPACITY

ISSUE

Conjuration

LEVEL 1

+50

Requires confirmation for assimilation.

Disintegration

LEVEL 1

+50

Requires confirmation for assimilation.

Host Body requires calibration!

There was no conflict in his voice this time around.

Assimilate them.

“What next?” the goddess inquired.

“Next, I start hunting down monsters. Let’s see what this crypt’s got.”

It didn’t take long for him to find his first challenge. The thoggua was a strange creature, easily the size of a hippopotamus, with three long and slimy tails, each of which ended in a sharp, metallic blade capable of carving through the ground if the constant etching noises were any indication.

No face. No eyes. Just a singular oral opening lined with endless fangs. And most importantly, it sensed the world through vibrations on the ground, and once it found a target, the metallic tails would instantly lock on its position and stab it with perfect precision.

Joy.

“And full of flesh on the inside.”

Flesh was good. Tasty. It meant roasted meat over a fire and a filled stomach. Leagues better than that gruel Solana’s folks had fed him. Then again, what did ethereal beings care for something so material as flavor? The only reason they ate food was to keep their flesh masks active.

Ugh, I really need to stop thinking with my stomach.

“Are you sure?” the goddess jested. “It is more consistent than your brain. No useless tangents either.”

Lukas rolled his eyes, before refocusing on the creature in front of him. The monster was around ten feet away, slowly gobbling up a pair of azolg it had sliced apart with its vicious tails.

That thing has got to weigh at least three thousand pounds.

He’d read the parable about David and Goliath. Who hadn’t? A famous story about an underdog managing to win despite overwhelming odds. Hollywood had shamelessly adopted it to showcase how large and powerful monsters could be defeated by seemingly tiny, weak, yet unafraid heroes who played to their own strengths and cunning to persevere through overwhelming odds.

But that’s all it was. A story.

In reality, if your enemy weighed twenty times more than you, it meant you left the realm of real combat and were now in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. And in real life, Jerry always had the short end of the stick.

He’d once had a pet cat, and not once had it ever come home with mouse-afflicted injuries.

Lukas brought his hands closer, touching at the base of the palm, and aimed it in the direction of the thoggua as an unholy crimson power flooded through him.

“Burn!”