Shrk

Jason’s eyes slowly opened, as he heard a tiny scratching sound on the floor near him.

With a high-pitched screech, something leapt at him, something heavy, as he felt a sharp something dig into his side.

All grogginess from his sleep instantly evaporated as he saw a dark, many-legged monstrosity right on top of him. In the darkness of the cave and its skin, he saw its shining white dots for eyes stare straight at him.

Out of its wavering, jelly-like form, two appendages tipped with needle-thin claws shot straight at him, easily punching into his stomach. Jason coughed as mist leaked out of his wounds. He immediately started forming his claws and blades, but the creature gave no respite as it started its barrage, dozens of needle-tipped appendages jabbing quickly at him.

Jason stumbled back, a dozen wounds leaking mist even as he tried his best to dodge and weave through the torrent of attacks.

His weapons finally finished forming, and he scanned his opponent with his skill.

‘Huh?’

Jason was surprised to find that his dissection skill did not at all indicate where he should attack to cut through it more efficiently. Where there was supposed to be a vague sense of where to cut, there was now none. In a second, he decided to simply attack the unsettling face on the devil.

His moment of confusion cost him, though, as the devil shot out a dozen appendages that he barely managed to dodge, with three grazing his sides.

“Ghh!”

Jason felt his body weaken as copious amounts of mist spilled out from his numerous wounds. He narrowed his eyes.

The devil froze, and he took the chance to do a straight at its face with his bladed tail.

Its screech reverberated throughout the cave, the sound ringing in his ears, as liquid gushed out of the deep cut on its face. Its appendages flailed about wildly, going in a frenzy as it struck at him.

Jason faltered from the pain, but a cool energy appeared, clearing his mind and returning him to cold clarity.

As he was about to freeze it with again, he coughed out mist, leaden pain wracking his insides and weighing down his limbs.

‘Poison? Shit, I need to finish this quickly.’

He used again, freezing the devil before shredding into its face with a powered tail.

This time, he rushed straight at it after it unfroze, dodging and weaving through the needle-tipped appendages as he wildly swung his claws, cutting through appendages before reaching the main body.

Up close, he could see that its body was made up of some sort of gelatinous slime, appendages appearing out of it to jab at him. He ignored the seething pain and poison slowly making his limbs feel heavier and heavier, using again as he punched his claws straight into its face.

It screeched and tried to impale him with a dozen appendages, but Jason froze it again with and continued to savage its face. His head throbbed from overdrawing his mana, but at this point he could not afford to care, and used once more.

After what felt like an eternity, the devil’s appendages went limp, and Jason collapsed on its body, his chest heaving as he felt the poison course through his body. At this point, he could barely lift his limbs, mist leaking out from dozens of cuts and holes all over his body.

He barely managed to dig out its core and consume it.

[ a being. +5 Essence of Sin.

Grant to a being. +100 Essence of Sin. ]

[Soul Power: 107]

He felt the now familiar energy wash over his body again, empowering him and healing his broken body.

‘Fucking hell, I can’t let this go on. I cannot leave every fight half-dead. It seems that I will have to leave the interface upgrades for now.’

Jason browsed the rewards for something that could quickly increase his survival chances now.

[]

‘So the increase it provides to my soul power has decreased. I suppose that’s to be expected.’

He had 545 Essence now, so he checked for better items.

[

]

“What to choose . . . I can stick to either of my bloodlines, and gain more soul power or inherited memories, or I can choose the core shard from a higher-ranked devil. It doesn’t give as much soul power, but I suspect that it can grant me with a much better bloodline. . . Bah, why even bother, of course I’ll choose the high rank bloodline.’

It hurt his heart to spend the essence he had saved up so far for a system upgrade, but being alive to get more was more important than long-term goals. Without further hesitation, he chose the core shard in his mind.

[ chosen. -540 Essence]

The shard appeared in his hand. Jason brought it up to his eye, curiously examining the pitch black object. It appeared to be originally round, but a rough, uneven crack cut off the rest of the sphere, and what was in his hand was about a quarter of the original core.

He held it up to the dim red light that peeked into the cave, but the shard seemed to absorb all light. He could only somewhat determine its shape by the absence of light. Not hesitating any further, he opened his gaping maw of a mouth and threw in the core.

In his mouth, the core immediately melted into a torrent of power like he had never felt before, coursing throughout his body, strengthening his muscles, hardening his skin, enhancing his sight and sharpening his mind.

He gasped form the sensation, and lifted his arm and observed it, as the iron grey mist that made up his body slowly darkened, turning into the same light-absorbing black as the core. The mist itself, too, changed as it slowly condensed, turning from a wispy, cloudlike consistency, to a thick, dark fog, slowly shifting and melding its shape at the edges instead of the wisps that appeared before.

Jason felt his form condense, become more solid and tangible compared to before.

[Ability unlocked]

‘Oho, very interesting.’

Right away, Jason tested out his new ability, and he noticed that he could now transform the shape of his body, to a certain extent. He could transform the shape and size of his body, but he could not inflate himself to gigantic proportions, nor shrink to the size of a pebble. At most, he could change his size by about 5%, though he would have to explore the exact proportions later. He could not change his mass, or change the state of his body, for now.

His body was apparently made of gas, yet had the properties of a solid, except for the mist constantly shifting within his defined form. And he apparently did have the organs and tissues of a physical being, yet they too were in a gaseous state.

He experimented with his form, condensing and expanding his form. Unfortunately, shapeshifting appeared to be painfully slow, taking about 10 seconds to make any changes. No suddenly transferring all his muscles to his arm for now. He could also change the colour of his body too, and he attempted to shift to a human form.

His limbs shortened to a normal human proportion, condensing to somewhat successfully make the mist appear as flesh, since the mist thickened. He changed the color of his skin to peach, and could manage to shift two of his four eyes down to where a human’s would be, along with the vertical mouth he had.

He touched his face with his hands, feeling his eyes, the nose he shaped, and his mouth. His teeth were still jagged and multi-layered by a sharp, and his skin was still shifting around, but with practice, he was confident he could emulate a human.

Jason smiled. He was not as relieved as he thought he would be upon discovering that he could have a human form again.

After experimenting for a while, he was satisfied with his current familiarity, and picked up his bag and left.

[Name: Jason Mendalez

Bloodline: Drenam Shapeshifter Devil

Rank: Esquire

Abilities:

Form Claws: Grade 5 Shapeshift: Grade 5 Induce Fear: Grade 3 Form Blades: Grade 3 Heavy Strike: Grade 2

Skills:

Dissection: Grade 2 Focus: Grade 1

Soul Power: 119

Essence of Sin: 5]

He had traveled for the past three days towards the direction of the pillar, and he was pleased to see that he was significantly stronger now. Physically, he was now strong and fast enough to dodge or block the attacks of most devils he had come across, but his most noticeable improvement was that of his mind.

He found that he could now think faster, analyzing the opponent for weaknesses with and thinking of the appropriate course of action much quicker. In his point of view, his enemies had also seemed slightly slower, but he suspected his improved cognitive skills meant that he could simply perceive the opponent faster.

He had also noticed that as he had started to encounter more and more devils as he got closer. Compared to the three devils he had met on the first day of his journey, he had fought eight today. And clearly, most of them had also advanced to the Esquire rank. They were faster, stronger, and had all kinds of abilities as he got closer. In his battles his opponents suddenly got faster, hit harder, or tried to incapacitate him with paralyzing or slowing screams or glares, or poisoned him with toxins that made him slower, sleepier or just wracked him in pain.

But now, he had survived, and far stronger than he was at the beginning of his journey.

[Name: Jason Mendalez

Bloodline: Drenam Shapeshifter Devil

Rank: Esquire

Abilities:

Form Claws: Grade 5 Shapeshift: Grade 5 Induce Fear: Grade 4 Form Blades: Grade 4 Heavy Strike: Grade 3

Skills:

Dissection: Grade 3 Focus: Grade 2

Soul Power: 166

Essence of Sin: 2000]

He had met and slain 19 devils so far, each giving him 105 Essence and around 2 to 3 Soul Power. He had enough for an interface upgrade, but his past near-death experiences and intuition told him that he would need the Essence to redeem something to save his life soon.

He stood at the top of a hill. In the distance was the base of the gargantuan pillar, even bigger now that he was so close. There was a massive hole, at least a couple kilometers wide, at the side, and he could see that the pillar was hollow, leading down. And hundreds of devils in front of it.