"The delusion of a narcissist is the idea that no-one else's feelings matter. They alone are real. Their feelings are the only ones that matter. Because everyone else is merely a shadow. And shadows do not feel." - legion.

But what if I am a shadow too? If at the same level as them, do any of us actually feel? Or am I the only shadow?

This day was going far worse than I had thought it was going to.

Klaudia and I were being held back from clearing all the body stacks by an increased number of lizard patrols. We had started on the first floor where there were almost no patrols, but had to head up to the third floor where the abominations all were. As it turns out, almost all the lizards were there too.

There was also the appearance of a few new scaly faces. The most worrisome was that of Corrosive Geckos. After quickly stabbing one through its soft skull, Klaudia had to abandon a steak knife as it began to smoke on contact with the skin.

We found that the geckos could easily alter the effectiveness of their acidic skin by direction. They didn't dissolve the floor or walls when they were walking along them but could dissolve metal almost as fast as it could be pushed past the skin.

I wasn't going to risk damaging my weapon, so I had to tear their souls apart before they could reach us.

The other irritating critter was a screaming lizard. A small red thing that stood motionless unless someone got within roughly a meter and a half of it. When that happened, it emitted a sound not unlike an air raid siren. But more annoying.

Again, I usually had to clear them by destroying their souls from outside their detection range. It was an extremely draining process and removed the possibility of draining their soul essence.

I had no idea how much I had missed out on, but I was sure it was a a lot. And I was far from happy about it.

At least when we did get to an abomination nest, I felt like I made up for it. The souls were stronger than the day before, threateningly so, and there were far fewer souls to absorb on the outskirts of the piles.

[Incomplete] Rabid Abomination soul absorbed at 2% efficiency.

15.5 spectral essence absorbed.

If my maths was correct, then currently, the incomplete abomination soul was about seven or eight times more powerful than the average humans. And roughly five times that of the greater human souls.

I had the uncomfortable feeling that it was aiming for a total strength of 1000 essence, but if that was true, I still had several hours before that happened.

It was currently just about half-past 12, and I guessed I had maybe three or four hours, leaving me until...

I sighed as I pushed my arm into the third pile so far, knowing that the abominations would have hatched at the 24-hour mark.

I still had time, I just wasn't sure I had enough of it, or even enough "soul energy" to get me there. I had no indicative bar or gauge to tell me how much I could strain my spectral powers, but I suspected I was a third down. I could feel a little fatigue, but it wasn't bad.

What was bad was that Klaudia wouldn't enter any of the abomination rooms with me. I guessed the sight of so many dead kids in varying stages of decay was a little too much for her. In all honesty, I could barely stand it. I made an effort not to smell anything, and ignore anything my arm felt as I reached for the bigger soul.

I felt like it was time to eat, and together we found a science room that was empty enough that there was no real threat. The only other occupants were a few plants kept around for biology lessons that had mutated with the shift.

I never had interests in botany, so I couldn't even guess at most of the original species, but they were probably far more interesting now.

What had been labelled as a Venus fly trap now had an appearance more befitting it's name. It had a large yellow flower that was almost completely spherical. I could see slightly visible lines indicating petals under a surface that had slight variations of colour running in rings on it.

I could see the Venus part of it, but no indication of the trap. And honestly, if the fauna of this world were any indication, I didn't want to mess with the flora.

I examined the flowers of the nearby plants, raising an eyebrow at a tall flower that had massive variation of colour between its petals. Almost an entire rainbow was displayed between the entire bloom, and I would have picked it to keep as a memento if I wasn't certain it was dangerous in some way. I could see it had a hint of a soul in the base of the stem, so maybe it would develop some sort of sentient behaviour if it grows enough.

But I was just occupying myself as I ate and drank.

Klaudia was lying across several tables at once while she ate. It surprised me how easily she could change attitudes to activities, but I supposed that was just how she ticked.

I had a brief mental image of a robotic version of Klaudia that had insane combat capabilities and spoke less, but I stopped it there, as I had a tendency to sexualise females I thought of too much. Robotic or otherwise.

We wrapped up lunch quickly and I had to consistently urge her to move faster.

According to my guesses and the time, we had only a few hours to clear seven more abominations.

Four of the seven were accomplished easily enough, and we only had two patrols to fight along the way.

But I paused when I was running past a long windowed classroom and saw something wrong.

There was an abomination pile inside that I hadn't already cleared. And I was certain it wasn't on the map. This opened up a worrying question.

Did we manage to account for all of them?

There was every right that in the panic, the fleeing students had missed a classroom.

"Urgh!"

I shouted in frustration. It was rare for me to express myself like this, but I had set myself goals, and possible oversight on both theirs and my own behalf was going to slow me down.

"Wait here."

I turned to Klaudia and rammed through the classroom door. I managed to destroy the handle and little else as it swung open with a slam, so I just left it and jumped straight onto the top of the pile.

I sunk in a few inches and fought the urge to be sick then took a knee and punched through as much of the flesh as I could.

It was an ineffective method, so I just took the inactive ankh and aimed it towards the centre of the pile, touching it to the lowest point of my last impact. I activated it then deactivated it as fast as I could, making a long thin opening for myself.

I reached inside and felt warmth where it should have been cold.

They're almost ready.

I quickly absorbed the soul and as I left the classroom and began running again, I made some frankly stupid yet logical guesses.

The students in the cafeteria only found 10. But that makes 11. That makes no sense though. They're evenly distributed, in a hexagonal building.

SHIT!

There was likely another abomination out there that hadn't been mapped.

There was a patrol ahead of me, but it was only a single of the largest variety of lizard, so I leapt over it, making a low sweep as I did so. Even if I didn't kill it, it would have been too injured to follow.

I heard a hiss of pain, but no clawed footsteps, so I kept running, assuming Klaudia would follow.

As I ran, I built up a mental image of the college floor I was on. I marked the known abomination rooms with circles and crossed out the ones I had cleared. There was only one place an unidentified one could be, so I knew when I needed to check all the rooms.

I only had four more to clear, and a brief glance at my phone told me I had over an hour to do it.

I was missing out on tens of souls by only absorbing the soul of the abomination, but I was also saving a massive amount of time. I immediately became far more confident in my abilities to complete my task before the deadline.

We passed the boundary between the science labs and design workshops in a flash. I spotted another screaming lizard ahead and almost lazily tore its soul apart. It fell from the wall it had been suckered to, displaying the damage I had dealt and awarding me with pitiful experience.

I had to stop for a minute to regain some stamina, and remembered my unallocated stat points. Since I had levelled up General Fitness twice more since the previous day, I had three I could use. I put them all into endurance, raising my base total by 11. The ankh I always held was supposed to give me more stamina, but my total didn't increase or decrease at all while I used it. But I used up so little stamina when I swung it that I could guess the stamina stat on a weapon showed how much stamina wouldn't be used. It was annoying that wasn't explained, but as my only really problem was stamina right now, being free to slash as hard and fast as I wanted was a definite bonus.

I glanced around for any approaching dangers as I rested, but saw none. There were only signs of a relatively recent fight between humans and lizards. There were pieces of bone and claw as well as scraps of torn clothing. It must have taken place hours ago, but some parts still hadn't despawned.

It was encouraging to know that there were those separate from the cafeteria bunch that were able to survive. And not only were they surviving, but they were fighting back.

I started running down the halls again, Klaudia easily keeping up with me. We passed the metal workshop, and I was tempted to just rush past it, but something caught my eye as I passed.

There was a massive lizard lying on one of the long tables that bordered the windows. And when i say it was massive, it must have been twice as long as I was tall.

I walked into the room and was immediately assaulted with the stench of sweat and... sex.

Though I recognised it, it was not something I had ever expected to smell there, in the college. Let alone during a literal apocalypse.

I ignored that as best I could though, and took a closer look at the beast.

It was surely more powerful than anything I had faced so far, but as far as I could tell, still paled in comparison to what the rabid abominations could become.

And it had an incredible soul.

"Um, Sam?"

Klaudia silently stepped into the room behind me, sounding nervous.

"Shouldn't we keep going?"

I looked up from the soul in front of me and looked back. Klaudia seemed anxious to leave here, and I did too. Despite the soul appearing far larger and more complicated than any humans, the lizard around it was strange enough to send a chill down my spine.

"One second. This is... important."

I grinned as I stared at the soul again. It was the regular white that all souls were, but it seemed to be loosely wrapped in a layer of darker grey threads.

I was so tempted to gently pull it intact from the body it was in, but I knew that I might lose the chance to absorb a greater soul. And I was certain this was one of them

I touched the exposed skeleton of the lizard through a leg wound and felt a torrent of energy enter me through my arm.

Greater lizard soul absorbed at 2% efficiency.

10 spectral essence absorbed.

From some approximations, I was almost at 100 essence, so I would be able to buy the first spectral skill.

I didn't have time to look around the workshop anymore and didn't particularly want to, so I nodded to Klaudia, and we left.

Over the course of another hour, I cleared four of the remaining five abominations.

I checked my phone to see I only had half an hour left.

Should be fine.

But I was exhausted. We had encountered several patrols and my stamina regeneration was starting to decrease. I was both physically and spiritually worn out, so I knew the last one would be a chore.

I had gained almost 40 more essence from the buried souls, but I held off from buying the skill. I knew I would be distracted by it as soon as i bought it, and really needed to be focused on the task at hand.

I wasn't sprinting or even running anymore but walked as fast as I could to the next target.

When we encountered yet another patrol of lizards, I groaned at the effort, but managed to clear it at the cost of all but one of Klaudias knives. That meant we were down to our final weapon each. I regretted not finding more weapons while we were in the workshop. Even a chisel would do as a makeshift dagger.

This could only go one more way. If we met any more lizards, Klaudia had to be armed. I didn't.

I handed her the ankh as we walked and taught her how to use it. She was a fast learner, I just hoped that her high agility would allow her to swing the sword quickly.

By the grace of the gods, we encountered nothing living up to the door of the final abomination. We were lucky. Incredibly so.

The room was dark inside, someone had closed the blinds before anything happened in here. Irritating, but not debilitating.

"Stand watch, ok?"

I put my hand on Klaudias shoulder and she nodded at me, despite looking distracted.

"Ok," I said it to myself more than her, to confirm to myself that it was almost over.

Inside the classroom, I didn't need the light, only my spectral sight skill.

I could see the final dregs of human souls almost orbiting the central one, just minutes away from completing it. I felt compelled to wait and see what was born from these, but common sense overrode these foolish thoughts and I began to climb the scaffolding of bones that protected the beast within.

Skill learnt: Mental resistance (B)

That was something that would become incredibly useful in the future, as mind control was quite possibly my worst fear. It was interesting though that the nearly born abomination seemed to project an aura of idleness. It was almost like a pre-emptive defence mechanism.

I had let my mind wander too much in my confidence, so I shook my head slightly to refocus and punched into the top of the pile, snapping bones and tearing cloth to make a way.

But when I touched the surface of the souls residence, it wouldn't absorb.

What!?... oh no...

I kept my hand in the same place and felt a heartbeat under my palm. It was weak at first, but got faster and stronger the more I felt it. Another joined it, and I could identify a dual heartbeat.

I'm too late...

I tried to pull my hand away from whatever I was touching, but there was a sudden motion under the cover of the skeletons, and a moist but firm hand gripped me around the wrist. Hard.

The pile shifted under me, and I almost fell, leaving me handing by the wrist from the abomination holding me there.

It was incredibly strong, and I attempted to tear its grip away as it slowly unfurled itself in the darkness.

A low growl emerged from its centre of mass, but it sounded bubbly and wet. A disgusting noise.

"KLAUDIA!"

I yelled for help as I felt my body to react to the fear. I was trembling in its grip, and my breaths were shallow. I was essentially weaponless, and I wasn't strong enough to hurt it.

But Klaudia had the sword.

She walked into the room, but couldn't tell exactly what was happening from the lack of light.

I started kicking my legs wildly and must have hit something important, as a shriek of pain came from where my door had landed, and I saw it had taken some damage.

-4hp

It was laughably low, but the abomination was pissed off now. It threw me against the wall lined with tall windows. I felt the window crack under the impact, but was distracted by the air being knocked from my lungs. I wasn't stunned, but had taken 11 damage from the impact and knelt on all fours on the ground coughing and wheezing.

I heard but didn't see Klaudia attack it. But I had no idea how well it was going. Occasionally I would see a damage box appear, but I had no idea who was hurt as both were almost constantly screaming at each other.

I guessed it was some sort of skill that both possessed. Something intimidating.

That reminded me that as this was the first serious fight I had been in, I should try some skills out. As soon as I was able to take a proper breath, I recalled all the skills I had gained and guessed at the usefulness of each.

I activated inspiring aura and targeted Klaudia exclusively. I didn't know exactly what it did, but I hoped it helped her. The only other way I knew how to help was to shed some light on the situation. Literally.

I tore down the blinds over the windows and revealed the rabid abomination in all its disgusting glory.

The name abomination was completely appropriate as it was enough to cause me to vomit. Repeatedly.

The abomination looked to be made of human parts, but a gross amalgamation of bits and pieces. It's main body was made of two male torsos organised In a 'v' shape. It had a long arm coming from each of the outer shoulders, but each arm had four joints down it instead of one. And the hands weren't some other jointed component, just some extension of the arm. Where I would have expected a hand was just a rout ball of flesh with a ring of long fingers that could grip or arrange themselves into a mace of knuckles. More fingers San down the arm almost randomly. They moved but randomly, looking like twitching tentacles.

It stood on four legs that looked to have dozens of joints and resembled tentacles more, except they still had properly formed feet on the ends that separated into five more long excuses for toes.

The worst part was that it had almost no skin. It comprised completely of exposed muscle and bone, making me question how it held itself together so well.

The chest cavities of both torsos were the only covered parts, but the skin covering them was a dark red, and looked dry compared to the rest of it.

There was no head I could see, but it seemed to be able to attack with some degree of accuracy so probably had some other way to sense them. And I couldn't see a mouth either. I wondered briefly how it had growled and screamed, but could only credit it to magic again.

Klaudia was also distracted by seeing it, and though she managed not to throw up, it provided enough of a chance for the abomination to take.

It swung a leg at her, hitting her in the stomach and throwing her back out of the classroom.

The situation had turned to shit, and I knew for certain I couldn't damage its soul enough to let it dissipate naturally.

The abomination half turned towards me and swung another leg in my direction. I managed to duck under it and activated Social Chameleon, allowing it to discern me as a low threat.

It turned its attention to the injured Klaudia. I hated to do this, I didn't want to just sacrifice people to save myself, but I needed time.

I glanced at the clock in the classroom. The glass was shattered, but I could see it was almost four. There was just over fifteen minutes until the 24-hour mark.

I could have spent that 100 spectral essence to get the skill but doubted reading a soul would help. The other skills available to me gave me an idea though.

A mana skill I couldn't effort to get was mana infusion. I had the impression that spectral energy and mana energy were similar, so I went all in and tried to infuse spectral essence into my fist.

But it was in vain as I couldn't. I probably still didn't understand the essence enough to manipulate it properly.

The only other thing I had available to me was my own soul. I didn't care if it was dangerous, I just shut my eyes and pulled my soul in the direction of my right hand. I forced it into my clenched fist, imagining the energy entering the skin, the muscles, the bones.

I suddenly felt light-headed and disconnected from my body, so I opened my eyes and stumbled forwards. My right hand was encased in a grey aura that almost seemed to let it phase out of sight.

Skill learnt: Spectral Empowering (A)

As soon as I learnt the skill, the light headedness left, and I felt grounded in my body again. But the aura remained. Whatever I had, it was something big. I could hear Klaudia whimpering and pushing herself back down the hallway as the abomination slowly prowled after her.

I ran into the hallway so that I could see the slightly oozing back of the abomination and used Social Chameleon again. Instead of the least threatening presence, I changed it to the other extreme and made myself an intimidating challenger. The monster stopped in its tracks and turned instantly.

It was slower than I thought, but instead of waiting for it, or rushing to meet it, I found the jade ankh that Klaudia had dropped when she was hit. I swung it slowly in my left hand. It was awkward, but I was sure I would manage.

When I was within range of its grossly extended limbs, it leapt forwards using its tentacle-legs as springs with both arms outstretched.

I threw the sword as hard as I could towards the join in its two torso components. The blade sunk deep into the ribs of its left chest, spewing gooey red blood.

I ran between its arms and slid under a swipe from a leg that could have instantly killed me. I was faced with a tall wall of flesh in front of me, so I hid my presence as much as I could by making myself insignificant in its eyes... or lack of eyes?

I activated Spectral Sight and saw the soul barely being contained within it. It's was a masterpiece that I couldn't hope to understand. But the creature was backing away again to resume its chase on Klaudia, so I punched into the soul as hard as I could.

My fist passed harmlessly through its body, but as soon as it touched the outer edge of the massive white and grey soul, it was as if a cannon had been fired through it.

The monster recoiled with the impact, and I could already see it's soul unravelling from the impact hole outwards. It wasn't going to live long, but I was curious to see what would happen when it's soul completely left it. Like humans, the body lived on without the soul and vice versa, but monsters didn't seem to be able to live without a soul. And I didn't mean thrive and grow, but basic functional living. Brain dead.

It was still a danger until that happened though, so I jumped back from its writhing limbs and watched as it slowly weakened.

I felt myself getting weaker too as the cost of using that powerful skill caught up with me. I could still stand easily enough, and would probably need to, as I expected a lizard patrol around every corner.

-1670hp

When the abomination finally died, it's body dissolved into the air unnaturally, quickly letting the sword drop to the ground, and also dropping a small collection of items too.

Monster killed:

Damage dealt: 1670

Experience earnt: 2013

Class C threat (Rabid Abomination Pack) removed from locale (Filserd College)

Event: Abomination Infestation has ended.

Top contributors:

1. Samuel Herbert

2. Klaudia Lanachetz

Achieving first place, you have been awarded the potential Greater Slayer class and Monster Hunter occupation.

Additionally, you have been awarded a personal spacial inventory upgrade to 0.5m×0.5m×0.5m.

Spell learnt: Spacial Inventory (D)

The gains from an event that I had inadvertently halted before it had properly begun were incredible. They were huge advantages to receive so early. But I would look through them tomorrow. I was far too tired at that point.

I left the items dropped for later scrutiny too, as my companion was my first priority.

She was lying still on the ground, a thin trail of blood smeared on the path she had taken. I could see her breathing from a distance, so I knew she was still alive but had no idea of the situation.

There were no status effects on her, so I assumed the source of the blood was almost already healed. She just looked to have passed out from exhaustion or fear. Likely both.

I was too weak to princess carry her and doubted she would appreciate it if she had known, so I ungracefully lifted her over my shoulder and slowly walked to the nearest clean classroom.

There wasn't an especially comfortable place to lay her, so just put her against the wall in a vague sitting position. She slid sideways, but I caught her before her head hit the floor and let her fall more gently. I wanted to lie down too, but I was worried the loot would despawn quickly, so prioritised that.

In the hallway, the bones of the abomination were still there but were slowly being broken down too. I kicked parts of the ribcages away so that I could reach the sword, throwing shards of dense bones outwards.

Aside from the sword, which I instantly deactivated and pocketed, there was a small pile of gold and silver coins, a single blue gem carved with smooth wavey lines that was only a few centimetres long and wide. Finally, there was a rusted shotgun. It was the last thing I had expected to drop from this fight, but it was there and it was unusual in its own right.

It was the size of a single-handed shotgun, but with six barrels arranged in a ring. It was heavy, but not too bad that I couldn't hold it straight in one hand.

I analysed it, curious to see what this actually was.

Rusted Hex-shot of Decay:

Quality: high

Condition: fine

Attack rating: B

Damage type: Blast, Decay

Capacity: 6

Damage: 6-180 (8%:decay 4 per second)

Level requirements (-)

• Level 1: resupply

• Level 5: quick reload

• Level 10: multi-shot

• Level 25: piercing shot

Stat bonuses:

• DEX +10

I grimaced at the layout again. Especially the damage data. That was... unappealing to say the least. From what I could gather, it meant that there was an 8% chance of the shot doing decay damage to the target which caused a small amount of damage per second. Useful, but there was surely a better way to tell me that.

And this was the first time I had seen level requirements. What did I need levels in? Gun proficiency? A shotgunners class?

Instead of standing in the hallway waiting to be attacked, I returned to the classroom which still held the sleeping Klaudia.

I checked my phone. It was 4:14.

Perfect timing.

I was excited to see what would happen when it red had quarter past, but something was riding on the back of my mind. Something I saw didn't sit right. Something about the shotgun. It was strange.

Before I could analyse it again to see if I could spot the intrusive factor, I felt weak and fell to the floor.

My eyes shuddered closed as I saw a debuff appear in the corner of my screen.

Exhaustion 2 (8:00:00)

I drifted into an uncomfortable and dreamless sleep. Maybe I would actually get a good night's sleep this time. But I was certain this time, I hadn't locked the door.