165 - thoughts

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"You shouldn't kid with empty words." (Cress)

<...>

A brief look of disappointment welled up in her cheeks before she donned her mask of emotions. It was as uncanny as a jester's in that the emotions she showed were real at the same time they weren't. Somehow replication was executed to the extreme and her expressions may look genuine, however they still seem to act as a mask for her True thoughts. Rather than covering up her intentions, attention was just brought away. It was a distraction.

Of course it would just be disrespectful to point this out, no one would be happy with that decision. Everyone would be happier when things are more hidden.

Only those who truly spent an extended amount of time with her could detect such a vague feeling, it was more akin to using an intuition or instinct based skill, and feeling that there's nothing there even though the monster's right in front of your eyes. Is it real? Is it my method that's wrong? Or my eyes? Will I die here from indecision?

Raising it up will only bring forth misfortune, somethings are better left unexplained. However, who cares about the disparity between her emotions and her true thoughts. What I couldn't put off was her comment.

"Eventually, we'll become enemies in this quest. Are you willing to throw everything away for it?" (Cress)

".... You still have a long way to go. I'll have you fight me if you want to ever proceed. For now you should rest up and find a way to cure your condition." (Cress)

Kugh... I hesitated. It was so obvious too. That I had no spine to fight against Cress. I truly... Don't know what I want to do. All of these goals, they were set in the heat of the moment, with no substance to back them up. It's too late to find out now. It's clear, more and more enemies will only come to target me. So what then? It seemed that my only path is to fight, if it's so I'll just have to respond in kind. Whoever thinks they can defeat me... I'll beat the shit out of them and become the strongest!!

The symphony of a steady clap against the floor tiles slowly shrink off, vanishing into the distance. A swerving sound rang out with a thud. My disturbance is now gone. With the improvement in physical condition, my facial muscles had roughly recovered almost completely. Everything below the neck was still undetectable, making it a pain just trying to sleep.

When some body part is numb, the muscle and flesh inbetween often hurts incredibly much, like a searing piece of iron fresh out of the forge is pressed into your nerves. With that alone, it was a torture trying to keep a straight face in front of my friends.

I figured since my lungs were still functional, random parts of my body still served their duties properly. Eventually I may be able to shift my joints and everything else, albeit my sense of touch is lost forever. Without nerves on my skin connected, some detection methods would become obsolete and useless.

Haa~ mulling over this is quite pointless. I should experience the thrill of battle instead.

Activating [shadow step], I relocated myself to 300 metres in the sky, to get a bird's eye view. I was purely moving with [Shadow step-tier 4]'s anti-gravity effect, manually pushing each and every joint to take in the scenery. As my soul was in a sort of

'dislocated' state, my hp was drained at 1hp every second. It was not a particularly destructive impedement due to my ridiculously large hp pool, however it does grant that small bit of anxiety at the back of the mind.

Finding the city's main dungeon, a large gate the size of a 5 storey building stretched across the land. It occasionally opened slightly to let Adventurer's go in and fulfill their job, though never fully. As there was a respawn rate for the monsters in the dungeon, managing their population became a job, otherwise they will start flooding out and bring even more chaos to the city than Gefald's death orbs.

For formalities sake, I used the anti-gravity to raise my right hand to 90 degrees, a sort of waving signal for the activation of some skills. Maybe I do have 'chuunibyou'. As the my palm reached the zenith of the pose, ultra dense [Demonic energy] started pouring out of it. The [demonic energy] manifested as a sort of transparent dark purple fluid that swam in the air or for simplicity's sake, an aura that flickered like fire every once in a while.

It quickly swallowed my vision up into a violent torrent and caused a heavy weight to be applied on my conscious. I haven't used my skills for only a few days, yet my 'injuries' brought this much of an effect from a basic function.

It was [Demonic energy], it continued to compress together, constantly achieving the next league of density and intensity. Following this was what felt like being squashed in solid concrete, matter-like substances clogged the deepest reaches of my throat, bringing tears to my eyelids in pain.

Tch.... I have to endure... I need to get stronger. Froth had bubbled to the ends of my lips trying to endure this pressurised headache. "guh!!!!!"

As my head is the only part connected to the soul, the pain was especially concentrated in my cranium. Crimson liquid dripped down my lips from my nose, my blood vessels had burst. As my body acclimatise to the new pressure, the solidified [demonic energy] had already finished forming armour.

Jet black pauldrons that had a single spike going outwards from my neck covered my shoulders, along with protective plates lining from my waist to the edges of the gown on my left and right. A thin protective layer of [demonic energy] covered along my skin and green hospital gown, forming a dress a lavender and crimson embroidery.

Before I noticed, the sleeves had been torn, presenting as a completely different dress. Light armour plates covered my limbs, placed regularly away from the joints. There may not even be a point to the armour, due to my hopeless mobility. However the density of the [demonic energy] concentrated alone, could easily erase the monsters of the lower levels.

As there is light plating lining the back arm and forearm, same with the legs, one of the sections can be sacrificed as an automatic barrier. One that cleanses the air of harmful effects and low level monsters. For high level monsters, I would need to get on the offensive, shooting balls of [demonic energy] as projectiles.

The fun has only just started.