'That girl's body is pretty resilient to be able to withstand that high of a speed and not get torn limb from limb. Guess the residents here are stronger than the NPCs before.'

Ryan is lost in thought as he obliterates the last skeleton of the massive army that once stood before him. He had decided to fight the skeletons that Lilabelle and he had encountered before without using any weapons, just fists with some miracles thrown in and the results he got were very pleasing. The army that once numbered near one thousand is now reduced to a pile of bone shards and rotten weapons. Skulls riddle the whole area as Ryan just stands there with his hands in both pockets. He expected the skeletons to be stronger but they were surprisingly slow and extremely brittle and broke easily to his miracles. Maybe he is just that powerful to where these monsters are next to flies to him. Ryan pulls his hand out of his pocket and looks at the leather wraps that cover his whole right arm.

He remembered what these wraps went with and that was the Undead Legion set, one of his personal favourites. It doesn't have a good physical defence but it is light and has high resistance to anything that isn't physical. He decides to try to open the portal again to see what else he can get out of it. After looking distant for a few seconds, Ryan takes a deep breath and a thin black portal the perfect shape of his body appears in front of him. He takes a step through the portal and he can feel his body become heavier as the whole armour set slightly weighs more than he expected. He appears on the other side of the portal and it disappears.

Slight strands of white hair hang over his face as he fiddles with his mask and face guard to adjust it so he can breathe better. His torn cape is flowing in the slight breeze. He looks down at his left hand is amazed by the intense detail put into his single gauntlet and it makes him question once again if this is real or fake. As if trying to cling to the false hope that the menu would appear and he could log out, Ryan puts out his hand and slightly swipes it down... Nothing.

'Looks like I'm stuck here until someone takes off my headgear or until I can figure out how to get the new menu to appear.'

Ryan checks his health and sees that he had not lost any in the fight before but he was running low on Focus Points, which is what is used to cast miracles. Realizing that he might be weak with his miracles, Ryan tries his luck to receive a weapon to defend himself with. He makes a horizontal slash with his hand a portal is opened where the tip of his fingers sliced the air. As if waiting to see what poison he had picked, Ryan stands there anxiously. After about 10 seconds what seemed to be the hilt of a greatsword began to appear from the portal while being wrapped in chains. Ryan lets out a small laugh as it is fitting that he would get this sword especially with the armour he is wearing.

He puts his hand on the hilt of the Farron Greatsword and rips it from its chains. He sticks his hand into the portal before it closes and pulls out a dagger that goes with the Farron Greatsword to make it complete. The heavy sword and dagger have a moveset that Ryan is very fond of and extremely efficient with. He has a huge smile on his face as if his costume has been complete, the only difference between what he is wearing and a costume is that this one comes equipped with deadly weapons.

Remembering that he had just left the girl from the Mercenaries Guild in the middle of a street in a random town, Ryan decides it is time to go back and find her so he can ask this 'Tio' some questions. If an onlooker was watching Ryan, then it would seem that he had vanished into nothingness as he reaches the distant town in under a second. Sure he was sloppy at doing this and caused an immense force of wind to come off of him whenever he begins to run but that was something he could fix later.

As the scene changed from the battle-scarred woods to the street of the town, Ryan notices that the girl he had left here is now gone. He lets out an annoyed click with his tongue and begins his search for the silver-haired girl. As he walks down the street with his hands in his pockets and his weapons sheathed, he can feel the stares of many as if they were judging him. He remembers that this armour set has an obnoxiously pointy helmet but he kinda liked it even though the majority of people didn't. After about 5 minutes of just aimlessly walking, Ryan can hear the voice of a girl in an alleyway but he knows for a fact that it isn't Lilabelle but he still decides to investigate because it seems she has a sense of urgency in her voice.

As he makes his way into the alleyway, he expects to find a bunch of men surrounding a lone woman who would be a damsel in distress but in fact, it was quite the opposite. Three barbarian looking women were all surrounding an average looking man with the intent of murder on their faces.

"You got your services from the Mercenaries Guild so PAY UP!"

The one in the middle was face to face with the man and screaming at him. The man is completely averting his eyes from the evil gaze coming from the burly woman. His eyes met with Ryan's and he became slightly excited. What he did next was a massive mistake.

"Ah! My business partner, why don't you come help me take care of these women."

The sly man managed to get free from the woman's grasp and walks over to Ryan. He puts his arm around Ryan's shoulder and a dagger came out of his sleeve. He held the dagger to Ryan's neck and put a wicked grin on his face. The women notice that the man now has a hostage and that they are in a bad situation. One of them seems to even be cursing Ryan out for putting them in such a tight spot. The man laughs as he now has the women in a corner but he can feel as is something is wrong. Something that is like his life is in danger. He looks back at Ryan and realizes his mistake. Through the odd looking mask a single red dot can be seen in the darkness. It has no pupil and frightens the evil man straight to the core but he is too paralyzed to run away. While not being able to move the man seems to be getting paler and paler and his body seems to be shrinking in muscle mass.

The cause of this was one of Ryan's curses he had acquired throughout his adventures which is Corruption of the Abyss. With this curse, if Ryan is caught off guard and touched then his body will let out a black slime that will take the shape of an imperfect dragon and he can even harness this power if needed but it has some serious risks he would not want to take. The small head of the dragon is sprouting out of his back and is currently latched onto the suspicious man, refusing to let go until it has completely consumed the soul of the man. Ryan doesn't even have control of his body as the whole left side of his brain is infested with this corruption and it can take control of his body when awoken. The only way Ryan can be touched with this curse is if he is the one to initiate it, accept it (Such as shaking hands with someone), or if he is attacked, for the Corruption does not like to fight if the enemy is expecting it. After about 30 seconds of staring at each other, the dragon head recedes itself inside of Ryan's body and grants him control again.

After a few quick shakes of his head and a rapid blinking of his eyes, Ryan is finally able to realize what had happened and is surprised by how it feels to lose control of his body. Before, you just went into a 3rd person view of your character, but this time is different and he would like to never have it happen again and to be honest he completely forgot about this curse. After kicking the now dead body of the man, Ryan looked at his hands and wondered if there was a way to get rid of this curse.

'Well, looks like I'll have to be more careful-.'

WHHaAAM~

Ryan's thought is cut short by a quick punch to the face.