Roughly three months after he left for the Vahar’Gal Mountains, Keith had begun to encounter more and more Kysansha. After killing so many of them, he roughly guessed they were anywhere from C to D-Rank. However, they were probably only scouts. The true warriors of their tribe were supposed to be B-Rank and higher.

As for ranks themselves, there was a large gap between them. Under normal circumstances, a D-Rank could take on many E-Ranks at once. Normally those of lower rank could not challenge those of a higher rank alone. There were always exceptions of course, Keith was one of them. The gap only grew wider as the ranks grew. However, Keith didn’t trust ranks. He felt they didn’t necessarily portray the true power of someone. There were too many variables unaccounted for.

On one such day three months ago, Keith had been killing of Kysansha scouts. He managed to find an I.R.C.D on one. These Kysansha must have been a part of a large war party that killed the Hunters he got his sword from. He’d been trying to repair the I.R.C.D ever since. Even now, after six months of being in this realm he hadn’t had a day’s rest. They were still hunting him.

He must’ve thoroughly pissed them off since now they were actively hunting him. He still wasn’t very adept at stealth or hiding his presence. He was like a beacon in the distance; it seemed that the Kysansha could find him wherever he was.

Maybe this was a blessing in disguise, because after killing so many of them, he grew stronger. Elena said that he jinxed them for saying it was time to march to their deaths…. It was too late to take back what he said.

Not only was his strength increasing, the amount of Soul Points he obtained grew rapidly. Sadly he still had no finesse in fighting; he was utterly barbaric and had no technique. It was as if he didn’t fight like a human but instead a wild beast. Every time he survived a battle, he honed his primal instincts even more. If he were to gauge his strength right now, comparing his stats to the Kysansha as well as other beasts, he was roughly in between D and C Rank.

He currently had over 15,000 Soul Points. The reason he was saving them was because of Law. Rather than wait until he was considered an SSS-Rank to learn law, he wanted to purchase [Soul Cleansing]. It was a onetime purchase. No matter how weak his soul was, this would purify and cleanse it. His soul would undergo a qualitative change, and he would be able to “sense” the power of Law.

Ordinarily he would have to wait until his soul naturally reached this realm of strength. This threshold was around the strength of SS to SSS-Rank. This was when few people who were talented would begin to sense Universal Law.

The System truly was looking out for him. It seemed to know what he needed the most and evolved to meet his needs. If he could start learning Law now, it would put him in an extremely advantageous position. It had given him the option to learn Law quite early.

There was only one small…. Or rather large problem….

The System was a god damn miser! It was a greedy bastard. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that it was the Sin of Greed’s incarnation. All the important abilities he could buy such as [Soul Cleansing] or [Soul Manipulation] were stupidly expensive. [Soul Cleansing] was 35,000 Soul Points. He had spent over six months trying to acquire this amount. Even worse, he didn’t know what governed how many Soul Points he acquired. Sometimes he would get less than ten, other times he would get over a hundred.

If not for the fact the Kysansha started to actively hunt him three months ago, it would have taken him far longer to achieve the amount of Soul Points he did have. There was always a trade-off though.

Due to constantly being hunted and having to fight the Kysansha Tribe or wild beasts, the time it was taking to travel to the Vahar’Gal Mountains was exponentially increased. It should have been a three months journey by walking. Unexpectedly it had doubled.

However, if there was one thing he had plenty of, it was time. He didn’t have a family, nor did he have any friends. There were a few acquaintances here and there, but they would go through their lives just fine if he were to disappear without warning. Maybe if he knew the mission he was to inherit then he would feel pressured for time. This was far off in the future though, so he shoved such thoughts to the depths recesses of his mind.

After killing this most recent group of Kysansha, Keith felt much better. Today of all days was not the day to mess with him. He hated technology. He was horrid when it came to using phones. He had a smartphone back in his apartment on Earth –he was probably evicted by now due to going missing-, but even then he wasn’t very adept at using it. They weren’t like I.R.C.D’s, and wouldn’t connect to Earth from other realms so he left it in his nightstand.

The I.R.C.D, what took most people a few days to repair had taken him three months. He’d spent the better half of these three months fiddling with the wires inside of it, as well as trying all kinds of methods to repair. There was even a time that he thought he might destroy it by accident. The System chose this perfect time to become useless. When he asked it how to repair an I.R.C.D it refused to answer him.

It wasn’t until today he finally got it to react to anything he did. Even now, he had no clue what he did. He was interlocking and mixing the different colored wires.

Those Kysansha, they were really hateful. They had no respect for working adults. He only felt better after insulting and scolding them when they attacked him. He was on the cusp of getting the I.R.C.D to work. He felt it in his gut which hadn’t failed him yet. So, he did what most sane people would never do. He completely ignored the four Kysansha that were closing in on him. He ran through the sandy dunes, and jumped up on the random trees that now dotted the desert wastelands. He evaded his pursuers as he focused on the I.R.C.D

At that point, the Kysansha –at least two of them- began to use magic, or skills, well…something. The sand of the wastelands turned into giant boulders. Not surprisingly they hurled them at him; this caused childish insults to spew forth from Keith’s mouth. If even one of those hit their mark, he would have been turned into gelatinous puddle-mush.

Only when the I.R.C.D began to show a weird blinking green light did Keith finally turn his attention to the Kysansha. He was angry. What if the I.R.C.D didn’t work? Even if it didn’t contact anyone from Earth, there was still a chance he could find out what was happening on the other side if someday someone did contact him.

Despite his insults and easily expressed emotions in his voice, Keith’s face still had its perpetual frown. When he threatened to annihilate their species he tried to grin malevolently, but he felt like he scowled instead. He really felt like an old grandpa that hated anything and everything about the world and only reminisced about the good times of their past.

Even worse, he had snow white hair. To which not even Elena knew why The System changed his hair and eye color. It was as if it wanted others to think Keith was someone who craved attention and became rebellious because of it. All he was missing was a bunch of piercings all over his face… which he refused to get.

With Atraxia’s Wrath, Keith had quickly dispatched the Kysansha, and then checked his status.

Name: Keith

Hp: 3471 Mp: 1683

Hp Regeneration: 343/min Mp Regeneration: 57/min

Strength: 243 Agility: 285 Spirituality: 333

Vitality: 290 Intellect: 320 Resilience: 194

Current Weapon(s): Atraxia’s Wrath

Equipment: Ring of Mara’s Faithful

Currency: 20 Low Grade Mana Gems

250 Middle Grade Mana Gems

15,473 Soul Points

Skills: Passive

[The System: Lv. Max] [Soul Eater: Lv. 1] [Unholy Incarnation: Lv. 2]

[Yin Eyes: Lv. 1] [Reaper’s Touch Lv. 1]

Skills: Active

None

…

Quickly skimming through his status, Keith was satisfied with his progress. His attributes were increasing steadily. They would have been higher if only he could absorb the full soul strength of his opponents. That’s what he thought at first. The truth was that the System loved to steal from him.

Not only was he penalized if he was injured because soul strength was diverted to healing his injuries, there was other hidden “fees”. What was The System? It really was a miser… It was a greedy piece of scum.

He absorbed anywhere from five percent to twenty percent. This was only after he did basic testing by keeping track of the soul points he acquired. Even if he killed two Kysansha that were identical in every aspect, he was not guaranteed to get the same number of soul points. He could live with getting less soul points from weaker creatures, but this was just unfair.

Although he had no proof, it seemed that The System would use any reason available to confiscate the power of the souls he devoured. He didn’t even know what those reasons were…

Not wanting to bother with it anymore, Keith looked over his abilities.

“Oh, look at that… Unholy Incarnation leveled up. That’s helpful.”

“You’re one step closer to Master Anthrus, although that step was less than an inch,” Elena said cheerfully.

“Thanks…” Keith said dryly.

So far, all of his abilities were passive. It wasn’t as if there weren’t abilities that were that he had to manually use, but he felt that they would be useless without the power of Law. They were also absurdly expensive. Instead he focused on passive abilities.

Although they couldn’t show their true power without Law, they would still aid him overall. Instead of quality, he was focusing on quantity. He wanted to gather as many passives as possible.

He still had no idea what Yin Eyes was though. He had yet to “see” something others could not see. It was turning out to be quite useless at the moment.

Reapers touch was interesting though. It worked similar to Atraxia’s Wrath; however, he felt it was more like a curse. Every time he touched his opponent –even indirectly by using a weapon-, he didn’t even need to injure them; it would sap a small amount of their stamina. Probably because he couldn’t use the power of Law, he couldn’t control it yet. It was probably best to not shake hands with anyone in the future… at least until he gained mastery over this passive.

As for Unholy Incarnation, this was what Keith relied on the most in his fights. It was a double edged sword. It seemed any type of Incarnation meant he was embodiment of something. It was essentially an aura, much like killing intent.

When he killed, he absorbed the remnant life force, as well as the newly created death aura. Essentially with Unholy Incarnation he was the embodiment of life and death. The two forces mixed into something unfathomable.

The more he killed, the stronger this ability grew. Around Keith was a deathly aura. It wasn’t suppressive, it didn’t force others to kneel or make them struggle to breath. Instead, it caused bone-chilling fear that pierced to the depths of the soul. It made others feel despair and as if death was looming over them.

As for the life portion of this ability, while he was surrounded by a deathly aura, at the center of it like the eye of a storm was Keith. His life force, his “existence”, was magnified multiple times. Synergizing with the death aura his magnified “existence” made him appear like a reaper, always looming over the shoulders of others reminding them that they were only mortal, and eventually all were equal in death.

This was the reason it was known as Unholy. He embodied both death and life. It had now grown strong enough to nearly paralyze all weak creatures. Those around Keith’s strength weren’t paralyzed, but the fear made them sluggish and dulled their senses. As for those who were slightly stronger than him, they were only momentarily stunned. For anything far beyond his level of strength, it had no effect.

But this ability, even if it only stunned for a few seconds, it gave him multiple chances to attack with Atraxia’s Wrath and make use of Reaper’s Touch.

However, the reason it was a double edged sword was he couldn’t control it. It was the same as Reaper’s Touch. As long as he didn’t have the power of Law, his magnified “Existence” was like a beacon to the Kysansha that were hunting him, he had no way to suppress it as of yet. The Kysansha were also part-serpent anyways. They were extremely sensitive to heat, as well as the five senses. He had no way to hide.

Lamenting the fact that the upgrade to his abilities was both a benefit and demerit, Keith closed his status. It was better not to think about such things, they would gnaw away at his mind. Instead, it would be better to begin travelling again especially since his “beacon” was just strengthened.

As he began to make his way towards the Vahar’Gal Mountains again, Keith suddenly remembered his I.R.C.D. It had been blinking with a green light. Taking it out of his pocket, it no longer blinked. There was only a faint green light that was nearly imperceptible.

Since it was like an ear bud, Keith attached it to his right ear, and positioned the microphone that was as thin as a copper wire next to his mouth. The moment he did so, he heard a faint voice gargled with static.

“H…Hello?”