Acma was thinking deeply about what he saw. He already guessed that the result of integrating with this Seed of Darkness must be sort of getting a darkness type of power like necromancy, dark magic, curse or maybe he would become a darkness creature like vampire, lich, spectre or something similar.

He remembered his talk with Sirsutir, the talpid mole at Gru Village, about Soul Slaver and Necromancer. If the power from Seed of Darkness happen to be a necromancy, then he will have a lot of enemies among the non-human. It’s not like he cared about having more enemies.

What worry him the most was the probability that he himself will turned into an undead and say goodbye to the world of living.

Even thinking about it sent a chill down his spine.

“Since it have been purified, I guess nothing bad will happened, right?” he said, trying to console himself.

He read the notification again and made his choice.

“Yes, I want to integrate with Seed of Darkness”

As soon as he said that, the Seed of Darkness immediately bore itself into his left hand, triggering an excruciating pain like been eaten by a thousand bugs, alive. The pain spread from the backhand to the shoulder and it went back and forth repeatedly. It was so intense that he felt nothing except pain.

He fell on his knees and his right hand tightly gripping his left forearm. Beads of sweat raining down his forehead as his body began to sweat profusely. A few seconds later, he lost energy to stay on his knees so he fell to his left, crouching. It was a terrible pain. The worst he ever felt in his life.

Scream, scream, scream. Let out all your pain with your scream, his brain told.

His heart refused. Screaming only mean that he lost against the pain. He wanted to fight it to the bitter end and conquer it. That’s why he gritted his teeth as hard as he could until his gums were bleeding.

After a full 5 minutes, his body was convulsing and spasming. He slowly lost control over his body and lied helplessly on his back. The only thing he could do was staring blankly at the blinking stars. He lost.

Regret? No, it’s not a regret that he felt, but a feeling that he couldn’t describe what it was.

This was the second time Void betrayed his expectation. Firstly when his weapon broke during releasing the Dimension Splitter skill. Now the second time. He expected nothing like this pain would happen after the Blessing of Void had purified the lich soul.

Or, was he expecting too much? Maybe the purification already eliminated the worst from the lich soul.

He struggled to let out a smile. Then everything went dark.

Acma lost his consciousness.

During the time Acma was fighting with the pain on his left hand, there was a group of rider arrived outside the town. It’s a group consisted of close to 500 elves, riding on a majestic white horses. A chilly night wind sent their cloak fluttered, revealing an armour artistically engraved with an image of a tiger holding a sword on their right chest. They marched uniformly in two columns and at the center of formation, there was a young lady riding a unicorn. Her silvery armour was glowing with a faint white light, made her stand out among the rest of the troop.

“Princess, we have arrived”, one of the rider spoke to the young lady.

The Princess threw her sight at the town and frown before her an enchanted voice, pleasant to the ears departed her beautiful lips.

“Why can’t I sense any dark mana from this place?”

“My apologies, Princess. My humble self do not have an answer for that. The scout from Beastmen Brigade said, it gradually disappeared a few hours ago”

“Beastmen Brigade? Have they arrived?” asked the Princess with her right brow raised a little.

“No, they have not. Only their scouts did”

“... Have their captain meet me after they arrive”

“Yes, My Princess”

The princess looked at the town again before giving out an order.

“Set up a camp. We will move in after the first light in the morning”

Accepting the order, all the riders dismounted and began to setup a camp.

A few hours later,

“Urgghhh, my head”, a weak voice broke the silence.

Acma tried to touch his temple, but found out that he still wearing his helmet. His head was spinning and he still felt nauseous, leftover from the pain he suffered before he lost consciousness.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and tried to familiarize himself with the surrounding. After a few seconds, he knew that he was lying in someone’s living room, surrounded by his guardians. They stacked close together, forming a wall around Acma.

He didn’t see any blue panel on his sight so he didn’t know what he got from integrating with the Seed of Darkness. But he didn’t worry because he knew that the panel only came out for a short time and then disappeared.

“Open: Status”

Acma Heart Level 368 Race Human Class Emissary of Void HP 19000/19000 MP 188625/188625 Dark Mana 0 Strength 1536 Agility 1305 Intelligence 2207 Luck 310 Unallocated point(s) 15 Title Lord of The Heavenly Villa, The Benevolent, The Grand Summoner, The Puppeteer

“Dark Mana was added. Hmmmmm... I guess it’s for some new skills”

“Open: Skill”

Survival Survival Cooking: Intermediate, Crafting: Intermediate, Climbing: Advance, Tracking: Advance, First Aid: Advance, Sneaking: Master, Swimming: Advance, Language Comprehension: Master, Identify: Grandmaster Weapon Passive

Hand Gun, Rifle, Knife, Sword, Spear, Archery Active

Dimension Splitter: Grandmaster Magic

Passive

Body Strengthening, Mana Manipulation, Skin of Python King

Active

Blackhole: Grandmaster, Wind Blade: Master, Tornado: Beginner, Earth Splinter: Master, Earth Spike: Master, Earth Shield: Master Dark Magic Active

Weapon Make: Beginner, Summon: Skeleton Warrior: Beginner, Summon: Skeleton Archer: Beginner, Summon, Skeleton Spearman, Beginner, Summon: Skeleton Guard: Beginner Movement Passive

-None- Active

Phantom Step: Grandmaster, Blink: Grandmaster, Teleport: Grandmaster

“...”

“Why dark magic was separated from magic?”

“Identify: Dark Magic”

Dark Magic

Branch of magic which utilize only dark mana

“I see, dark magic only use dark mana. It’s mean currently I can’t use any of these dark magic skills since I don’t have any dark mana. I wonder how to obtain the dark mana. Hmmmm... Maybe the dark mist I saw last night was a dark mana”, thought Acma.

“Identify: Weapon Make”

Weapon Make

A dark magic to make a weapon from dark mana. The weapon will contain a corpse poison

“So this is the skill used by that lich last night. I like this skill. About corpse poison, I think it will turn a living into a zombie. I guess that lich was the main culprit that caused the zombie outbreak at this town”

“Identify: Summon: Skeleton Warrior”

Summon: Skeleton Warrior

A dark magic which summon a skeleton warrior from dark mana at 25% of caster’s level

“Only 25% of my level? Maybe because the mastery level is still beginner. Too bad that I don’t have any dark mana right now”

Then he identified the rest of his dark magic summon spell and found out that they have the same characteristics as Summon: Skeleton Warrior spell.

He took a deep breath, trying to remember what happened last night. Right now, he was quite satisfied with what he obtained from integrating with the Seed of Darkness. Looks like the seed was really been purified by the Blessing of Void.

Pain. He suddenly remembered about the pain.

Acma tried to move his left hand fingers and squeeze an invisible ball.

“Haaaaaah, I’m worry for nothing”, he exclaimed and sighed.

He felt nothing wrong with his fingers. Same goes with his arm. They functioned normally like nothing happen at all.

“Alice, is there anything wrong with my left hand?” he asked. He raised his body and sat crossed legs. Then he continued the squeezing motion with his left hand and repeated it.

“Welcome back, Master. Nothing wrong with your left hand, but I suggest to return to the villa for a thorough examination”

“...”

“Is my hand really okay?” thought Acma.

He unequipped his left hand armour and shocked. There were many runic black lines embedded on the skins sprouting from his wrist. He couldn’t decipher the meaning behind those lines, but he knew that they definitely related to dark magic.

“If mom see this, she will kill me”, he said dejectedly. Luckily, there was no change in the colour of the skins.

“Well, I can hide them if I wear a long sleeve. Or I can just say it’s a tribal tattoo if someone see this”, he smiled.

He took out his Sword Breaker and pressed the blade on his thumb. Another shock. He felt the pain but no blood came out. He pressed a little deeper but still no blood. His heart was racing. He removed the knife and saw the wound closed up in a split second and then disappeared.

“...”

He looked at his right hand and thinking of making some cut on it as a comparison but then decided not to. He raised his left hand in front of his face and poke it with the tip of his knife. The tip went into his palm and the wound disappeared as soon as he pull out the tip.

He couldn’t think anymore.

He felt the pain and could move it, but his left hand was absolutely not normal.

“There is no need to think about it any longer. It’s still my hand no matter what happened to it. And there still a lot of thing I don’t know about this Seed of Darkness. I have to figure it out later”, he thought as he trying to calm himself.

He re-equipped the left hand armour and kept all the guardians into the inventory. Then he rose on his feet and exit the house.

“That’s a nice blue sky”, he said as the first thing he did when emerged from the house was looking at the sky. Looking at those blue skies cleared up his mind. He took a deep breath and then released it. No more worries about his left hand.

The house where he took shelter was nearby the field. He look at the hole he made where he killed the lich last night. He sighed. That was the place where he passed out too.

“Alice, how long did I lost consciousness?”

“8 hours 37 minutes”

“That long? Wow. And what happened in the town when I passed out?”

“An army of elves and beastmen entered the town 1 hour and 13 minutes ago and then spread out. Since master still unconscious, I took liberty to follow them. They found the survivors hiding in the mines at the western side of the town, in the police station, in the town hall and in the mayor’s bungalow. They met a little resistance and then gathered all the survivors in front of the Buddhist temple at the north. Somehow the army couldn’t enter the temple so right now they are negotiating with the survivors in the temple. Some of the soldiers came to this place too but I repelled them all and they never came back”

“Thank you, Alice”

“You’re welcome, Master”

“How many survivors did they found and did they killed those resistant?”

“Their numbers are approximately three thousands and the resistant was spared”

“Good. Please show me the way to the temple”

“My pleasure, Master”

Acma was nervous about the condition of those survivors. They just went through the nightmare of zombie outbreak and right after that, they were captured and taken prisoner by a creature they never thought exist.

“Summon: Great White Alpha”

“Let’s go, Silver”