Chap 7 1567

The strong and sudden urge to eat myself overtook me as I used the skill Ouroboros. I lost myself in the act which became more natural than breathing, to the point that I stopped breathing.

A daze washed over me. I wasn’t thinking about the passing of time, or noticing it, so it felt that time had stood still, but that didn’t bother me. The taste of my own body wasn’t an issue either. It was as if I’d fallen asleep, and all of a sudden light pierced my vision.

That shouldn’t be possible. My eyes are ruined. I’m blind, but then how can I see light?

All this time the feeling of controlling my eyes had never left me, despite them quite literally having been blown or crushed to nothing. The just function like that. Creates shadow limbs. So telling my eyes to turn around and look at eachother wasn’t particularly hard.

And I saw my eyes staring into each other. I don't know which eye was more shocked, my left eye or my right eye. I mean I don’t even know which one was which. I just knew that whomever the eyes belonged to was shocked.

I looked towards the source of the light to find a hole in the many boulders stacked onto each other. It was a space I could easily fit through. I also locked down towards my chin to see what was eating it. I found my spikes and the wires to my spikes completely whole, and almost as if they’d been completely repaired.

I looked up what the skill Ouroboros did.

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Ouroboros - whilst eating yourself your healing turns to 1% of total hp each second.

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I can’t believe it. Just like that I’d gained a healing skin.

I found a few issues with it though. Firstly, I’d have to eat myself which meant that my mouth would have to work. Secondly, it was completely useless against any attack that killed me instantly. Otherwise, it was a solid skill to have.

I looked back at the mold. It must have come from one of the walls in the ceiling. Some sort of ancient evil I’d unleashed on the world. I tried to fly up, and found that my telekinesis skill worked just fine again. It seemed that ouroborus had fixed that skill.

I wonder if…

The white portal opened up on my chest, and the little flaming bird came out of it. It jumped across to another open space in between the rocks, and stood there staring at me. Fly up to the sky, I thought, and the little bird did so.

The next fifteen minutes or so were spent in complete agony. Using the psychic ability I cut into the part of my skin infested by the mold. It resisted my efforts, digging itself deeper into my chin but when it realized that wouldn’t work it tried fleeing to my wires, which were succinctly cut off.

I saw it morph into the stone, as I chewed on my cheek. I smiled but then I remembered that I had to get away from here as quickly as possible. It ate my health very slowly, but I feel that if I hadn’t spent those points into vitality it would move through me just as easily as it did with the stone.

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Quest completed.

Reward: 2000 experience.

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With my psychic ability I flew up out of the debris and into the jungle. The bird had flown and rested on my head when this happened. Damn bird, use your wings!

I floated out of the debris, and landed on top of a boulder. I looked out at the forest with hope. It felt refreshing and new. I relished the moment, letting it stay as long as possible. I could do it, I could be somebody.

“I can’t believe you’re still alive,” I heard a voice I had not heard in a long time. It belonged the the first devil. “Very well, I have a new task for you.”

“What task?”

“You will start a cult under my name, and you will unify the entire dungeon. You will start by taking over that zone you are in.”

Before I had a chance to say anything else, his presence was gone and I was left alone once more.

I took a deep breath. This was insane. Just arriving at hell was already an impossible task, but to unify the entirety of the dungeon whilst I’m at it? That’s beyond crazy, there’s no way I’ll be able to do that.

I should have told him. No, I can't do that. It’ll take me forever. I’m too weak. Or look at how powerful you are, why don’t you do it?

I couldn’t believe it but the first devil himself was starting to bother me. I liked the primal devil a lot more. I felt a surge of panic wash over me, and quickly in trying to find an explanation for why, I realized that the first devil could hear my thoughts.

Fucking heaven. I’m dead. Unless he didn’t hear it. If he had heard it I’d already been dead, but I’m still standing which must mean that he didn’t hear it. I felt relieved. That’s good. I’m still alive.

I’m now just a head with strange abilities that I shouldn’t have. I’m tasked with a crazy mission of unifying the entirety of the jungle under one cult. Also, I’ve got a flaming bird on my head and a centipede to find.

I also felt a bit hungry.

The first thing I’d do before I started my cult was find my little centipede. It would do me well to have another person to tackle this problem with. Although it wasn’t really a person, more like a pet.

Although it wasn’t like one of those human children pet’s a lot of demon’s had, those only cried and whined, but more like giant furr beast pets some merchants from the southern hell had, for protection. It was useful. A useful centipede.

The wind brushed up against my cheek, and only after a moment, did I realize that there was no such thing as wind beneath the ground. I looked up and screamed at what I saw. A large skeleton creature stood there, except the top of its head was completely rotten and human and air came out of it.

I swear that it came from nowhere. It must have teleported right into my sight, whic means that it was strong. The only other creature I’ve seen that can teleport could kill gigantic fish in a few seconds. This creature was clearly on that level.

“Hello,” I said.

“You’re a demon.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not supposed to be up here.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going to need you to go back to where you came from.”

“That’s the intention.”

“Can you not go back?”

“Not really no.”

“Well then that makes things a bit trickier. I could kill you.”

“Preferably not.”

“No. I don’t want to do that either. Well then let’s make a deal.”

“Alright.”

“Promise me that you won’t go up into the overworld, no matter what and I’ll let you walk away.”

“Promise made.”

“Great.”

The figure disappeared. The space he’d just stood in returned to normal. My eyes couldn’t believe what they saw. Who was that guy?

The problem behind making promises was that I had very little agency in my own actions. If the devil told me to do something I had to do it or else there would be certain death. Hopefully however, he doesn’t ask me to go to the overworld. Considering that he wants me back in the underworld, he shouldn’t.

That leaves me back to my original dilemma. How to go about creating a cult, and then forcing everybody in this damn jungle to join.

As I thought over it, I couldn’t help but realize a pack of trees falling over in the distance. They gave off a loud boom as they hit the floor, and past the other trees, about two hundred meters away they fell.

I wondered what happened. There seemed to always be something happening in this cursed jungle. So far it seems that I’ve been getting in the spotlight but that’s only because my attention has been solely kept on my enemies to stay alive. I’ve failed to notice the doubtless havoc happening around me. Yet ,that’s going to change.

If I want to make everybody here join my cult, or rather the devil’s cult, I need to first establish what happens in this area. I also have to get stronger. A lot stronger, otherwise I won’t be able to convince them into joining my cult.

By convince I mean of course threaten them with death. It’s always proved the most reliable method, but despite this, I doubt I could become stronger than the chimp in short time, so perhaps finding some other way to convince him would be ideal.

Or getting somebody to end him.

That’s also ideal.

I floated into the bushes with my bird still on top of my head. The ground was slightly wet. Large leaves crowded around my face. A few bugs flew past me, and I wondered if they carried any dangerous mold, or disease.

Sometimes I’d focus on some of the more annoying mosquitos, and I’d send out a small wave of telekinesis and crush them into splats of blood in the middle of the air. It was quite satisfying so I continued to do so. Gradually the buzzing around my ears died down. Somehow they’d gotten the message.

I traveled through the forest for quite some time before I reached what had caused the havoc. It was a face that sent terror through my spine. There stood the chimp from before. He was bloody, and in front of him stood the other creature I’d met, the one that looked more spooky.

To be frank, they were both in terrible shape, and so was the area around them. But they looked used to it. They stared at each other almost as if they’d done this a few hundred times. Boredom, or rather, a knowing in their faces.

“This is the three hundreth and twenty-first fight we’ve had. It ends in a tie. Let’s have our next bout next week.”

“No. I’m too tired.”

“I’ve said this a million times, but it’s never a question.”

The figure standing in front of the chimp disappeared. It seemed that everybody could teleport except for me. I didn’t know it was such a common skill. I’d make sure to get it in the future. It would make life so much easier. I wouldn’t have to spend time walking, or fleeing, or dodging.

Or I probably still would, but it’s always good to have an extra tool in your pocket. You never know when things might go sourly. Especially here in the dungeon where monsters lurked around every corner.

It makes me miss hell. At least there was order. A might is right, type of order. It exists here too, but nobody respects it. Here it’s might survives. Back in hell simply being mightier would be enough. It makes life a lot harder than it would be otherwise.

The chimp jerked his face to stare at me. Then, he sighed, stretched, and walked in the opposite direction. Was he avoiding me? It seems like it, but it’s almost certainly not out of fear, but some other reason.

I floated up into the sky, staring at the jungle. I’d have to take control of this whole place. It made things difficult.

I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. On the far wall there was a symbol. As I floated closer to it, the symbol became more clear, and I realized that it would make my mission all that much harder.

It was the sign of the angels. They were here to spread their religion. I had to get my cult goin, and fast.