I thought an epic battle was about to ensue, I'm disappointed that nothing of that sort had happened. The voice inside my head complained,

"What the hell did you want me to do? Get near it and die from it's potent venom? To hell with that, abusing it's slowness and chucking spears at a safe distance was the best option for me."

Very well then, the guardian had said that there's a tribe of lizard-men on your east, a swamp could be found there, perhaps they'll take you in?

"Noted, but, I kinda want to go further down that river, I'll visit the swamp if soon enough, and I kinda don't want to at the moment you know? I feel like I'll be fighting some deadly swamp monster if I do."

The death god stayed silent after I said that, encouraging me to never ever go near that swamp. Ever.

I smirked as my newly grown tail swayed back and forth. When it had regrown, it had lost most of it's barbs and what was once five sharp spikes dwindled to a measly three. A shame really, I kinda liked how I looked with those dorsal fins on my tail. "Welp, beggars can't be choosers. Not like I had a choice in the matter anyways." I said as I stood up, perfectly balanced this time around. I took one step that didn't wobble, I took a few more, then I went home.

It was early morning when I got back home, I started a fire, ate an entire basket of dried meat, and slept.

Waking up; I weaved together a very stiff, if not basic thatch armor, in case I ever have a run in with another creature that can kill my exposed ass with a single bite. It may not protect me against sharp fangs, but projectiles that only take effect when they land on exposed skin- similar to that salamander's spit, then yes, it will be extremely effective at that job. Given that the liquid doesn't actually go deeper than the 3 inch thick thatch of course. And I'm pretty much optimistic that I'll only be wearing this till I find a civilization that can actually make iron armor.

With my entire body measly protected- I went back down into the river to actually hunt something that isn't a monster.

I got back carrying a gigantic fish at the peak of noon, a creature that I specifically hunted and painstakingly looked for. The fish itself wasn't that notable, except for the fact that it looks like some mutated salmon with blue scales and a bony Jaw of course. Seems that the dunkleosteus family had survived extinction on this world.

Primitive thatch armor is good and all, but you know what makes them even better? Putting fish scale chain-mails under them, that's what.

So I got to work- first and foremost, using the thinner and pointer fishbones; I drilled holes on the scale's blunt end, after that, I chopped more trees and turned their flesh into pulp. I let the future paper dry under the sun and continued drilling the scales, the chainmail that I needed requires hundreds of scales, and putting holes into each and every single one of them was a massive pain in the ass; my back ached from all the slouching after I was done.

Still, it was worth it. Using vines, I was able to stitch them all of together whilst learning and practicing on how to control my life force. So far I was starting to feel it, and I could go as far as saying that I can even tug on it.

After that, I measured the pulp across my chess and cut it according to it's size; once done, I stabbed the scales through the soft cardboard till they were all stopped by the knot I had tied back when I stitched the the scales together- and voila, a very basic fish-scale armor that would act as, if not even be more effective than chainmail.

It was dark when I finished, so I grabbed the remaining fish I had barbecued off my chimney, ate them, then slept.

Next morning, I created even more Javelins. The fish bone had made the entire process easier as well, because not only were they hollow and only require to have the wooden body inserted into them - (such methods always proved to be better than tying due to the spear head not becoming loose, and would actually only fall apart when the entire spear itself was broken in half, still, the socketed part would remain inside of the head no matter what, and, if you give it enough time to carve the wood out, you can even insert a new body into the spearhead itself, given that the head still hasn't gone dull of course.)

-but the bone's were already straight and pointy in the first place, which, in simpler terms; they didn't require me to actually carve them.

Overall though, the fish has really proved to be the most useful prey I hunted so far. The skin hardening technique the salamander had given me is nothing compared to this, I wanted the regeneration or even the creature's sludge, but I guess this one is fine too. I created a few more stuff like a few arm-guards made out of scales and their calf equivalent, then I left adorning all of my new armor and armed with 7 Javelins- 5 of which were the best ones I've made so far - and of course, my old trusty spear.

A smile dawned on my face as I looked at the salmon trophy that hanged on my wall, I gave myself an approving nod before I went out to go explore more of the river's surrounding area.

The mist was gone when I got there; freeing me from any other potential ambushes, right as long as I steer clear from the murky river that is. Seeing a plated fish swim near the surface back then made me reassess the danger of the entire thing, who knows what kind of monster lurks down there.

I continued walking until it became night, then I started a fire, practiced my skill with feeling the Life-Force of others by spear fishing in the dark, shallow waters. I only caught a few small fishes here and there, but I did notice something peculiar; that being the black light that had mixed in from one of my recent kills, I inspected the fish and found out that the thing had an internal wound that caused blood to fill it's gills, choking it in the process. That god definitely isn't telling me everything I needed to know about this place,

Heroes huh?

Demons and monsters eh?

So I'm supposed to be a Demon right?

"Oi cunt, what the hell is up with that black-light earlier?" I asked the God at the back of my head, I waited for a few minutes but had gotten no answer.

Fine then! I'll find out soon enough. I figured that the traits that I stole aren't just for show, and I never believed they were natural. If I ever meet one of the heroes, I'll know whether or not the Life-Force I had gotten from the monsters reacts the same ways as theirs.

If the other heroes have monster features then yes, me and my traits can be considered comepletely normal. And besides, that means that I'm not entirely made out of Life-Force, and if I find the opposite- then, something inside of me is assimilating the green energy into it's own, completely copying the monster traits that came with the Life-Force it had converted.

"A mythical being, usually associated with death and grim reapers, and a scavenger that's supposed to deliver the souls to the Gods of Death, the Pastrues huh?" The concept of death was familiar to me, but somehow grabbing hold of this mysterious energy was just... impossible.

I'm either inept and cannot grasp the energy, which is bullshit since my patron is a God that specializes in the damn thing,

Or, it was never there in the first place.

And I'm siding with the latter, "So the souls of the living are made out of this so called Life-Force right? What? You take all of it and just... give me excess monster traits? You strip a soul clean then give me it's now useless clothing." I said as I crossed my arms. There was no answer, but I'll take that silence as a yes.

I feel more powerful everytime I kill a monster, so I assume that I atleast get some of the Life-Force. The God said that monsters do get traits from their victims, I remember those words, especially the - "the stronger the Life-Force the more traits they get" - part; so why the hell do I only get to have one trait of the two obviously powerful beings? It's simple, the guy just... takes a majority of it to re-create the monster's soul before proceeding to give me what he thinks should be trash.

They aren't trash dimwit. Stripping an ability off a monster's soul is extremely hard, so I give you a sliver of Life-Force containing the more troublesome abilities and let your own energy absorb and delete them. After that, the process of giving you a trait occurs- I take something that would be actually easy to remove then give them to you. Your lucky that you even get to have abilities, if the monster's aren't strong enough, you won't even get to gave an ability! Because I can just mix them with the energy as I re-create the soul.

And no, there's no such thing as the opposite of Life-Force.

"Then that black thing..."

Is the animal's maximum capacity dwindling due to their wounds, it will recover once the problem has been solved.

And besides, what do you think will happen to your fragile soul if I just give you everything? You'll become a mindless mutant with all the energy and abilities you'll absorb!

"Still, it's unfair that you get to take all of the Life-Force with the reason of re-creating souls! I knew the deers should've given me something atleast!" I protested as I took a bite from a cooked fish,

If you want to grow stronger, then kill more monsters, the heroes themselves are in the same situation as you, because if you can just grow powerful from killing regular beings, then why not just massacre an entire town? Your killing spree's alone would fill up my and any other god's schedule what do you would happen if I include all the other 18 heroes?

"So we're just a clean up crew meant to kill the monsters that has avoided the cycle of life and death? So much for the killing whoever I wanted huh?" The god didn't answer, so I just gazed at the night sky whilst continuing to eat my fish.