The fire crackled and popped. A leg shifted, causing a burning log to fall onto its side, sending sparks flying into the air. A blackened hand reached out from the yellow flames and clawed at the bare earth, dragging a mass of blackened, bubbling flesh behind it out of the flames.

“Hak, Hak, Ouch.”

Zelhaut continued to drag his burned body out of the fire. Once he was fully out of the fire, he flopped onto the ground, gasping for air. When looking around, he spotted his loyal golems standing at attention around his camp, ready for any threats, including his deal golems, Krindle, and Raldo.

‘Commander, when will I be able to summon more spirits?’

“Ugh, Raldo. I want to have more metal bodies ready before any more deals are made. Capeesh?”

‘... Capeesh.’

Zelhaut closed his mind to the spirit.

Spirits are, after all, still submissive before the gods. He can use them for his extermination plan, but when it comes time to fight the gods, he will have to abandon them. He did think about somehow giving them his blight affinity, but threw that idea in the garbage. The blight affinity would loosen the god's influence over them, but the Blight is also anti-magic. If the Blight touched the core of a spirit, a magical entity, it would probably destroy them.

“Let’s leave camp tomorrow.”

They were currently on the outskirts of the Goltop territory, bordering the Darserf Kingdom, inside the Unistead Empire. From what he had gathered, there were six territories in the Unistead Empire, Goltop, Swerndag, Guilesta, Sandnove, Vivtide, and Rednok. If he kept heading north from here, he would hit Sandnove, a desert territory.

—

The carriage jostled left, then right, then left again.

“Oh god, please stay my voice from berating this incompetent carriage driver.”

The driver of the carriage looked back at his two passengers. A man and a woman, wearing pure white armour that looked as solid as marble. Their shields were leaned against their legs, proudly displaying a silver ring, the symbol of the church of light.

“I, I'm sorry ma’am. The road is muddy and slippery. I am afraid there is not much I can do about it.”

The woman scowled at the driver, but the man sitting across from her simply nodded his head in understanding, then patted the woman on the shoulder.

“Jack? Why are you so nice these days?”

Jack shook his head at her in exasperation. He then pointed at his shield with the silver ring.

“Yes, I guess we are quite lucky. To go from squires of the Fire church, to then be recruited by the church of light and trained by them into proud paladins. I guess we are lucky in that regard. But what about our village?”

Jack looked at his sister with sadness in his eyes.

Shortly after they had left their village, it was raided by a strong monster. Everyone they used to know was killed.

“That is the past, look to the future, Lily.”

“Would you look at that, he speaks! Hmm. I guess you are right though.”

The two sat in silence for a while.

“Excited about the summoning?”

Jack looked up quickly, excitement in his expression.

“Of course you are!”

Soon, the souls of heroes would be summoned into the world by the gods. These souls would be reborn as babies with terrifying potential. They would grow into the heroes of the world who would defeat the demon lord.

“It will be our job to find them and guide them down the right path, so exciting!”

She was interrupted by the carriage jostling to the right.

“Oh god, stay my hand from drawing my sword on this horrible carriage driver.”

—

Zelhaut and his group managed to avoid detection while they traveled through Goltop. Aside from a few random murders, and a few eaten souls, they didn’t encounter anyone else.

This was one such murder. An archer, and a swordsman, were fighting a group of goblins. Nasty little green things, with crooked yellow teeth, and perpetually soiled loincloths.

He decided to wait for these adventures to kill them first, so as not to deal with the nasty things himself.

Soon the last goblin was struck by an arrow to the eye and fell, dead. Zelhaut charged out behind a tree and quickly decapitated two, not even letting them turn around to see him. Krindle walked over and Zelhaut saw him open his mouth, filled with sharp metal teeth, then close it.

“Tch. Too bad I can’t see souls. It would be fairly interesting to see what happens to them.”

“It is boring commander. Just a lot of screaming, no variety.”

“Oh well then.”

//

Level up!

Your class has reached level 100!

Please pick from the following offshoot classes!

Murderous Golemnist Berserk Golemnist Communing Golemnist Mad Golemnist Malicious Golemnist

//

“... Yes! Defend the area.”

Zelhauts golems surrounded him as he looked at the interface.

“Hmm. Can I?”

He thought about the Communing golemnist class, and the information about it entered his mind.

//

Boosts mana efficiency between entity and host.

//

//

Boosts damage after every kill made in under thirty seconds of each other.

//

//

Boosts damage when entering a frenzied state.

//

//

Grants random bouts of inspiration paired with madness.

//

//

Grants increased thinking speed when scheming.

//

He began thinking of the pros and cons of each class, but unfortunately, he didn't get very far.

//

You have thirty seconds to choose.

//

A timer appeared on the interface and began to quickly count down.

“Fuck me!”

He began tapping his foot on the ground, trying to decide on a class. His tapping increased in strength, and soon enough he was stomping the ground.

“UGH! What should I choose? Come ON! THINK!”

There were only three seconds left when he made his decision.

//

HP: 430/438

MP: 238/238

Str: 354

Ag: 359

End: 731

Dex: 551

Int: 276

-

Free Points: 0

-

Titles: Endurer

-

Class:

Mad Golemnist: Lv.100

-

Affinity:

Perpetual: Lv. 100

Blight: Lv. 100

-

Skills: [Identify], [Entity Engraving], [Carving], [Sense Material], [Smithing], [Condense], [Pathways], [Inspirational madness].

-

Circles: [Flex], [Command], [Lite sense], [Reflex], [Mana inlet], [Martial arts lite], [Brain copy low], [Spirit], [Sense], [Self destruct].

//

Zelhaut looked at his stats after he had distributed his free points. It had been a while since he had a nice hard look at everything. His affinities, which had been capped at 99 for a while, finally progressed to 100 after his class reached that level.

He had gotten more skills since he last took a hard look. Pathways was a skill that allowed him to engrave channels for golems to move their mana easier, therefore making them faster, with better reaction times. Inspirational madness was the newest skill that he just got. He’ll have to test it out.

The sense circle was an upgrade of sense lite, which helped the golems sense their surroundings even better. Martial arts lite was a circle that gave the golems some modicum of skill with hand-to-hand combat. Brain copy low was a pretty interesting circle that did help with his pursuit of living golems. This was a circle that copied his basic brain functions, giving the golems some sense of what to do when he says, “guard the area”. The self-destruct circle was another new addition, it must have come from his new class as well. He would have to test it to see how big of a boom it made.

“Hmm, since Blight is at 100, should a mutation occ-”

“...”

Zelhaut brought his hand up to his chin. His lower jaw had just unhinged like some kind of snake. He heard an object hitting the grassy floor. He looked down to see a white piece of flesh that looked oddly like a snail's shell. Reaching up to scratch the side of his head, he felt like he was missing something.

“uck…”

Zelhaut closed his jaw.

“Fuck. My ears!”

That was not the end of the changes. The holes in his head, which were now exposed without any ears, began to seal themselves. While these holes on the side of his head closed, new holes were created, burrowing through his head like worms.

“Aggghh!!”

Zelhaut fell to the ground as the two new ear holes burrowed through his skull into the front of his face. He grabbed and punched his head, trying to make the horrible squirming noise stop.

“Aggh!”

Another two holes began to burrow to the backside of his head. Then down, into his neck.

“HMMM!”

As the four tunnels continued to be drilled, the bones of his face began morphing. His face slightly flattened out as his cheekbones collapsed. His face took on an owlish look. This owlish look came complete with more feathers quickly growing to cover his face.

When it was all done, he lay on the grass, gasping for air. Black blood flooded out of the four new earholes, dripping onto the ground.

“That… was….the..worst.”

He now had two ear holes located at the front of his face, right under his eyes. His other two ear holes were located on the back of his neck, also covered by feathers from his head.

“Make camp.”

The golems began to build a fire pit with rocks while Krindle walked around, scouting the area.

“No fire.”

The golems abandon their project and began to spread out, standing guard.

Zelhaut began to test out his new hearing. While speaking, he sounded much louder to himself than before. Every sound was amplified and more distinct. He could also hear the rustle of the grass beneath himself every time he moved.

“Hehoo.”

He sat up and touched his face, noting the feathers and owlish feel. Rummaging in his bag, he brought out some water and washed out his ear holes from all the drying blood. His feathers were clean, without any blood on them, they repelled any liquids, keeping them in pristine condition.

“Now that that is dealt with, let's try this skill.”

He was just about to activate it when he had a thought.

“Krindle. Keep an eye on me. Make sure I don’t hurt myself or do something really crazy. I am testing a new skill, be ready.”

“Very well.”

He activated the skill in his mind, then everything went black.

…

“Ugh, my head.”

Zelhaut's head was pounding. He tried to reach up with his hand to rub his temples but was stopped by a constricting metal grip around his body.

“Krindle. What are you doing?”

“Commander, are you in your right mind?”

“What are you talking about, duh, of course, I am.”

“... Are you sure?”

Zelhaut let out a huff of annoyance.

“Yes.”

“...Are you lying?”

Now he was beginning to get a bit pissed off.

“Yes! I am in my right mind, now get off of me!”

“... Well, commander. You have said the same thing many times before, and when I let you go, you instantly look for the highest object to jump off of.”

“... Was the skill was that bad? I don’t really remember much.”

Krindle unwrapped his arms from around Zelhaut’s body.

“Looks like you are back… Maybe. It is very hard to tell.”

Zelhaut stood up and surveyed his surroundings. He was still in the same area he remembered activating the skill, but all the trees had writing on them carved with a knife.

“Oh, it’s coming back to me now!”

He had written his ideas on these trees using a knife, constantly mumbling like a, well, a madman. He looked at where his golems were standing guard, only to find more writing carved into the golems themselves. A couple of golems were lying motionless on the ground, a knife stabbed into their command circles.

“Wow. I did some damage. Oh! Krindle. You’ve got a, umm.”

“I am aware.”

Krindle reached up with his hand to his face and pulled a dagger out. The metal behind the dagger closed on its own as it slid out of the metal.

“Perhaps you should lock me in a cave next time I do this. Although looking at these notes, I made some real progress. Let's strip these trees and save all the notes. I’ll make some new golems, so you can kill the ones who have any notes on them and shove them in the bag.”

Krindle’s head sagged a bit at his enthusiastic attitude.

“It sounds like you plan to use that skill again?”

“Of course! What are you, crazy?”

“You're the crazy one.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Krindle quickly began to destroy the wooden golems' command circles. Zelhaut saw Raldo standing far in the distance, staring at him.

“What's the deal?! Let’s get to work!”