And (N)one Shall Remain

“Maldita Sea… I really wish this skill hadn’t popped out just after my last chat with Oldies…” grumbled Esperanza as she looked at the messages from the system’s notifications hovering over her eyes.

 

[Soul Storage] has secured a Soul! 47/1000

[Soul Storage] has secured a Soul! 48/1000

[Soul Storage] has secured a Soul! 49/1000

 

[Soul Storage]

Unique Skill

Level 1

A storage to keep souls in a safe place, whatever it might be used for.

Allows the user to keep souls of living creatures that died in their vicinity within a storage for later usage. Level 1: 1000 soul capacity.

 

She had gained the skill when she leveled to 5 just a couple days ago, the second class skill in her [Emissary of the Forgotten] class, but one that oddly showed little use so far. Esperanza wondered if she needed to gather more souls to unlock some features in the skill or something similar, hence her longer than usual hunting spree deep in the forest.

 

As for the skill “securing” souls of the dead beasts she just slaughtered – She just took out a trio of [Shadowfang Nightcrawlers] with levels in the high 30s easily for those last three souls – it seemed to do nothing detrimental to the carcass itself. The useful parts of the carcass did not diminish in quality or anything like that, and even using [Consume] on them gave her the usual results.

 

More than a little puzzled by her new skill, Esperanza looked around for more prey in the forest. Dali ranged out further away in order to find prey for her, since he was the fastest of their trio, while Gordita stayed by Esperanza and followed her from the ground, while she flitted about on the treetops. The large dog easily kept up with her speed even so.

 

Before too long, Esperanza noticed a faint sign from Dali, a sign that he had found some prey nearby. The sign was something she sensed in her mind. As [A Glimpse of Understanding] leveled up it also seemed to further strengthen the bond between her and her summoned companions. Whereas with other people she could only notice their thoughts from a close distance, she could feel Dali and Gordy from much further away, and even communicate with them over that distance, if in a rudimentary manner.

 

Gordy silently skulked over to Dali’s direction, her large, shaggy form somehow silent as the night as she slipped through the dense undergrowth of the forest. It was almost as if she could weave through the nook and crannies of the shrubs and other small plants down there without disturbing them, which was both surprising and rather eerie given her size.

 

Esperanza herself took the higher pathways, as she manipulated her form to shimmy over one branch to another, at times latching into another, further branch and transferring her mass over carefully to avoid breaking them. The amorphous quality of her “true” form made it easy for her to move that way, and it was both more comfortable and safer than walking on the forest floor.

 

Besides, there was nobody to see her hunt anyway, so no reason she needed to keep the humanoid shape she used for the sake of the villagers.

 

As she made her way through the treetops and branches up high near the canopy, she eventually spotted what Dali found. It was a [Tyrant-Claw Ursine Lvl 37], one notably smaller than the beast she killed back when she was still in her first tier. As far as she could tell, beasts of its kind were solitary predators, so this one probably moved in on the dead one’s territory as its scent faded from the area, thinking the area unoccupied.

 

While it was correct in that there were no more [Tyrant-Claw Ursine] ruling over the area, it was wrong in thinking that the area was unoccupied. Esperanza was the new apex predator of the region, something the likely younger bear-like beast had no idea about. 

 

The beast cautiously sniffed a tree around where the old tyrant used to leave its scent in the past, probably trying to make sure that the scent had long faded away, with no renewal over the past weeks. It was cautious enough, but it either failed to notice Dali hidden behind it, or it had ignored the much smaller dog. 

 

For some reason Esperanza thought she got the impression of a contemptuous scoff, as if the very idea of such a simple creature being able to detect Dali was insulting to the dog.

 

Either way, she crept slowly and more quietly towards the beast, still using the treetops as her preferred path. She was not particularly worried about the beast noticing her by scent, since as far as she could tell, her current form was nearly scentless, so neutral to most senses that it was easily ignored. She activated [Gauze of Oblivion] as well just in case, as she moved into position.

 

Dali and Gordy quietly waited, hidden in the bushes below, roughly positioned behind the [Tyrant-Claw Ursine]. They waited obediently for Esperanza to make the first strike, as she had told them to.

 

As silently as she could, Esperanza inched over until she was directly above the still-unaware ursine below. Then she collected her body mass carefully so as not to break the branch she was perched on, and dropped down to the creature. Despite her mass, she made as little noise as a falling leaf as she fell from near the canopy, and thus her landing atop the unsuspecting monster’s head was a complete surprise to it. 

 

The moment she landed on the [Tyrant-Claw Ursine]’s head, Esperanza signaled Dali and Gordy to go as well. Both dogs raced out from the underbrush and struck the monster from behind. Dali nipped at the back of its rear legs’ ankles, while Gordy used her weight and directly tackled the beast’s back, her fangs biting the surprised bear’s spinal cord like a vise.

 

Esperanza herself did what she had done to the previous [Tyrant-Claw Ursine] she faced and wrapped herself around its face, sending tendrils towards the creature’s eyes and ears. To her surprise, she met with far less resistance than she had expected. Her tendrils bore into and gouged out the beast’s eyes within moments, and not long after, other tendrils made their way through its eardrums and into the poor beast’s brain, where they ripped and tore everything apart with wild abandon.

 

The [Tyrant-Claw Ursine] slumped down and ceased moving even before the system notification arrived, as the notification only popped up after the beast trembled a couple times more and gave up the ghost in the end.

 

You and your companions have defeated [Tyrant-Claw Ursine Lvl37]!

You have leveled to level 6! +2 Free Major stat points gained! +1 Constitution Gained, +3 Wisdom Gained, -2 Sanity Gained!

Class Skill [Flesh is but a Vessel] has leveled to level 3!

Gained Class Skill [Soul Bolt]!

[Soul Storage] has secured a Soul! 50/1000

[Storage Dimension] option has been unlocked!

Warning: Dropping below 50 stored souls will disable the [Storage Dimension] and expel any items stored within.

Class Skill [Soul Storage] has leveled to level 2!

Storage Capacity: 2000 souls.

 

Many things happened at the same time in the notifications. Esperanza gained a third class skill with her level up, while leveling a couple others at the same time. The [Storage Dimension] option was what caught her eye, and as she tried to feel her way through her [Soul Storage], she could feel a small cubical space, probably around a foot and a half to each side, that she felt like she could put items within.

 

Out of curiosity, she grabbed a broken branch on the forest floor and tried to put it into the space she could feel. The branch vanished right away, and she could feel its presence within the space inside the [Soul Storage]. Next she gave a more analytical look with [Gaze Unto the Abyss] to both the new [Storage Dimension] as well as the new skill she earned just now.

 

[Storage Dimension]

Secondary function of [Soul Storage]

Allows the user to store items small enough to fit inside the storage space provided. Size scales with the amount of souls stored within [Soul Storage]. Dropping below the required number of souls to maintain the current size will reduce the size of the storage and expel any item too large to fit.

 

That was at least straightforward enough. If she could make the storage large enough to fit her knife – which was pretty much her only belonging other than the set of crude clothes she wove herself – then it would save her the trouble of hiding it when she didn’t feel like using it. The knife was certainly a helpful tool, but she noticed that it seemed to slightly diminish the experience she received when she killed things using it.

 

The lost experience was likely absorbed by the knife to maintain its growth, but since she could also let it grow by letting it absorb the blood off her kills, Esperanza has been partial to doing it that way instead. She didn’t want to lean on the knife as a crutch too much, and would rather train herself first while still giving the knife some food for its growth. 

 

One of her arms – she had reformed her body into the more humanoid shape she used to interact with the villagers out of habit – extended upwards to the treetops, where she stored her folded clothes and knife atop a sturdy branch. She quickly plunged the knife into her kill once she retrieved it, allowing it to absorb the dead beast’s blood to sate its appetite. Her clothes, she stored within her storage space for the time being, since it fitted just fine when folded properly.

 

[Soul Bolt]

Legendary Skill

Level 1

Forge a soul into a bolt, unleash the bolt against another soul, and unravel both at the same time.

Allows the user to turn a soul into an offensive projectile that targets the opponent’s soul. Can only use souls in the user’s possession. Power depends on the user’s overall Soul stat, the amount of souls used to craft the projectile, and the target’s Sanity stat. Level 1: Can forge one soul at a time into a bolt.

 

The new skill was straightforward enough.

 

It also conveniently gave her a use for the souls she had gathered so far. One thing Esperanza noticed was that she did not have to personally kill the creatures she gathered the souls from. She just had to be close enough and as long as they died recently, it would do the trick as well. Still, she noticed that the souls she gained from the smaller animals tended to need several before her [Soul Storage] counted it as a whole soul, while the ones from bigger creatures usually counted right away.

 

She spent the next while hunting a few smaller creatures in her way until she got a couple extra souls, then she looked for a larger beast to test the new skill out on.

 

Esperanza lurked quietly at the tree’s canopy, a [Nightcrawler Stalker Lvl 28] perched on the branch several meters below hers. She chose the beast to test her new skill on since it was one she could easily take care of even if it fought back, and thus was a relatively low-risk target to test on. 

 

The process of using the skill itself felt almost instinctual. She noticed how she could select which soul to use for the projectile, so she picked one that felt like an amalgamation of smaller ones and somehow shaped it into a small, conical projectile, almost like an oversized bullet, in a way.

 

With a mere thought, the [Soul Bolt] launched itself at the creature below her. When it struck, it sank into the creature without leaving even the slightest injury on its scaly skin. It just seemed to merge with the creature, and did not seem to have harmed it in the slightest.

 

Even so, the [Nightcrawler Stalker Lvl 28] stiffened and dropped off the branch it was perched on, the notification of the kill resounding before the carcass hit the ground.

 

“Huh. Qué padre está,” muttered Esperanza with some surprise.