Chapter 34: Skunked

“I will kill you!” It screeched. Once it was allowed to voice itself, it roared its opinion of Trint’s introduction. The outburst caught Trint off guard, and his tail flinched. The result was that his tail which had been closely coiled around the creature, morphed and extended like a tightened coil being allowed to spring. The motion was only about ten inches per coil, and the increased pressure didn’t feel that strong, but the tail had instinctively become extremely sharp while tightening.

Trint was immediately aware his strength had ended this conversation as Exp flooded him. Loosening his tail, the creature fell to the ground. It looked like a spiraling saw had sliced around its body and made it into a curly fry. Trint leveled many times from that one kill. It was easy, and the rush was incredible. Now, what was left of the clax only slightly resembled a creature. It had been covered in fur, and its armor was light leather. Neither was able to withstand the crushing and cutting power of this tail.

‘I hope I’m not addicted to this leveling high,” Trint mumbled. “The fact I just called it a high makes me worry even more. I’m also talking to myself. ‘Pneuma, you are a bad influence. I’m constantly talking to myself now.’

‘Trint, as funny as you think you are, your humor is not quite doing it for me.’ Pneuma teased. ‘Why don’t you just kill the rest of the scattered creatures. The closest group heard that death threat.’

Trint focused on his Spirit sense and realized the fog he’d extended around the campfire was now occupied with five of these creatures. Trint was feeling wickedly creative, so he condensed the mist around the creatures’ eyes, noses, and mouths. Now blind and quickly suffocating, they were reduced to muffled cries while clawing at their faces, trying to free what was choking them. Each lost to their struggle. They didn’t see anything before Trint was there silently dispatching them with his tail and legs, not wanting to wait for them to expire.

Since he was using the longer eight legs to move around silently, he went with the theme and began extending what he thought of as spider silk. Inch-thick wires that narrowed to the diameter of silk snaked out of each of the legs. These wires were able to operate independently of the legs and would be able to pierce through flesh and bone. The threads were able to burrow then expand into the creatures till the spirit threads became cords inside of them became dense enough to start thrashing around inside like a weed eater string flailing and destroying fleshy matter.

Trint decided his silent, but deadly new silk threads were kind of disgusting. But their effectiveness was undisputed. He blended their insides, leaving nearly unblemished exteriors which seemed to dematerialize peacefully. No one would know they suffered if it wasn’t for the cries and horror-filled facial expressions.

The rush of Exp and added levels were ridiculous at this point. Trint gave Pneuma the go-ahead to allocate half of all gained stat points. They were finally formulating a plan to specialize and see the impact of imbalanced stats. Still, with even half of the stats getting added to his attributes, he was starting to feel a monstrous strength, and his ability to multitask from added Mind stats was getting to the point that he almost felt inhuman. He supposed that was actually beyond the fact at this point. He had been inhuman since the first time he leveled past 1.0 stats.

With the rush of his favorite drug and the promise for more Trint moved through the dark rubble of a forgotten city, silently blending the minds and hearts of its inhabitants. Several times, Trint took a moment to observe the creatures before reaping them. He realized they reminded him of a cross between a Doberman with their ears clipped and a skunk. Not due to smell, although the first crushed one of these guys stunk.No, it was the black and white striping of the ones who died face down without much armor.

‘Are there skunk people in the subsystem?’ Trint pondered.

‘I don’t think I’d call these skunk people,” Pneuma challenged. ‘They are closer to your weasels in their facial features, but they do have the stripping of the skunk.’

‘Never mind, I don’t want to know the details,’ Trint tried to end the line of conversation. ‘I’m not interested anymore. I just assassinated a bunch of them by brain blender. Not proud of that, but wow, they couldn’t even resist when I grabbed them. I never realized how creativity was such a big part of my fighting style. I figured, learn a skill. Use skill and then repeat. This is much more satisfying.

Trint continued to make progress. Every group of skunk-weasel was eliminated either creatively, or if he was occupied with a dozen at once, he killed them with massive swinging blades. As he encountered some with heavy armor, he mixed it up by killing some with direct damage hits, crushing them in the grip of his many appendages or the new tactic of internal blending.

Trint had no idea how many levels he’d gained, but he almost felt lightheaded when killing a dozen enemies over level 100 at once. Trint had previously enjoyed many hobbies, but this was his latest and absolute favorite. He started to wonder if there were any adverse effects if you received too much Exp for your level.

‘Pneuma, is there any danger of receiving too much Exp?’ Trint feared he was potentially crippling himself with addiction or hurting his future growth.

‘No, silly,’ Pneuma laughed, ‘the whole point of the iterations is to progress, gain Exp and never stop. Eventually, the system wants you to reach True Ascension. I don’t know of any who have done that, but many are trying. The final stretch is not an easy one. Let’s finish this. Remember, Jung is going to struggle to understand your level spike. It might be time to tell him about us.’

‘I forgot about that,’ Trint realized. ‘Nothing we can do right now. Let’s find the boss; I know we are getting closer.’

The instance was a lot larger than any he’d experienced yet. They had covered at least 15 miles. Methodically slaughtered every enemy he encountered.They each represented a goldmine of Exp. He was happy to take every nugget of Exp to the bank. Trint was curious about his level and yet wanted to wait until the end to check.

He was interested but wanted to see how big the jump was in one go. He knew the progress so far was staggering, but there was so much room to grow. The more levels gained, the less progress he would make from the same amount of Exp. There was a slope. This instance still had a lot of runway to get him near the iteration minimum and ready to take off.

“The scouts are reporting slaughtered groups of our dispersed troops,” reported the second in command into the dark recesses of the collapsed building. Now no more than a large cave made of collapsed monolithic structures of old. “No bodies obviously, but they are missing, and they found blood spatter. Their sites are otherwise empty. We are expecting a large force with stealth capabilities. Possible long-range units and casters. But our main confirmation is that even half of our scouts stopped reporting.”

“That’s enough,” came the hidden creature’s low rumble. “I am not afraid of whatever has swallowed your kin. I am sufficient for whatever this iteration can bring at me. Flee if you want, but you will face the system’s wrath for deserters. I couldn’t care less. I am done working with your people. My protection does not extend to your kin anymore. Leave me!”

Trint’s progress never slowed as he came across more creatures. Whether armored, hiding in the rubble in ambush, even some with smaller creatures as scouts and what he assumed were actual scouts from their forces.No matter what he came across, they were easily dispatched. Trint’s creativity and experimentation with his Sovereign Creator class gave him plenty of freedom to dispatch enemies without much need for repetitive attacks.

The last several groups experienced Trint’s first attempts at actual ranged attacks. He could whip his extremities at incredible rates, like a sling, send sharpened or even some heavy pieces of Spirit matter at the beasts. The spirit seemed to maintain its structure long enough to kill the creatures, even after it left contact with his form. It was much like the mist he choked the earlier group with. He had total control over the spirit that was his.

Now he had one more idea he wanted to try. He had yet to over-exert himself with using too much Spirit. His next attempt made him nervous that he might, but he always had the escape token. Trint sensed his next targets. They were a combination of the armored units and a couple of dozen regular troops.

‘Ok, Pneuma,’ Trint was giddy as he mentally projected his words and plans to his dark passenger, ‘Watch this!’ Trint began to transform.

‘Oh, Trint, I have to tell you that is not original to you,’ Pneuma sounded condescending, like talking to a small child who figured out something that the whole world already knew.

Trint’s imagination and early attempts triggered his desire for recreation of his teenage fantasy books and movies. Trint’s form was beyond human proportions, but he wanted to try bigger and badder. His head grew, as did his whole form. Spirit billowed like a fire with wet leaves tossed on. The spirit thickened and clouded around Trint, and it didn’t stop. His form was now the size of a bus; the spider legs had thickened and were now like tree trunks. His head was becoming like a reptile. Teeth elongating, sharpened, and in multiple rows. For some reason, he loved the extra rows of teeth.

The form he imagined was firming up. Since Trint’s original image was too generic, he kept the spider legs and added some tails. He now had three tails, the length of a city bus and growing. His dream took form, and the face was smiling with glee and desire. He just hoped he didn’t taste much if he ate something.

“What is that noise?” The creature growled in annoyance. The evidence of the approaching enemy was exciting and confusing. The creature showed no fear, just confusion.

“What could be massive enough to be causing these tremors?” It spoke aloud. To any from the System, they would have only heard the growls of a beast. To Trint, he was close enough to use his spirit to listen to the beast.

Trint had finally found an upper limit to his ability to channel and manipulate Spirit. He ran into a density issue. His form was so big that when he stood on his back legs, he was the size of a giant water tower or cell tower from Earth. The problem was he had to create a scaffolding for the outer part of his form. The density of Spirit in i7 and his ability to condense it were maxed out. So he made bars supporting the structure of his form. It would otherwise just turn to mist and leave a gaping hole. He tried to be creative and yet keep his dream.

The commotion and earthquake vibrations finally drove the secluded beast out. Confusion was still apparent on its face.

“Am I not the strongest in this trial? Is there another?” The beast spoke as it exited the cavern of ruined buildings the size of a large hill, the beast and Trint now locked eyes.

“Is that an undead dragon?” The beast rumbled in awe and, finally, a bit of fear.