Live On Social
The skulls of over two hundred Orcs exploded in under a minute. With each |Corrupt Bullet| Cain shot, the coliseum shook.
The air quaked and tremors ran across each and every survivor's body —" not only shaking them to their core, but also elucidating the vast difference between themselves and Cain.
After slaughtering the Orcs that stood on the ground floor of the arena, Cain walked towards the edge of the crater. Looking down, he paused for a few moments and observed the chaos that continued to transpire.
Leon fluttered through the air frantically, trying his best to maneuver between the enraged Orcs and the Admiral's erratic chain. He was doing his best to rescue the trapped people while the Admiral defended them.
Cain had never met the Admiral or even seen the old man until now. He possessed gray hair that grew just above his ears with a mild bald spot contaminating the top of his head. Although the two had never met, Cain could instinctively tell that the old man was Adams.
He could feel it in his bones. Something about Admiral Adams having sacrificed so many souls perhaps —" because Cain felt inexplicably familiar with him.
While Cain studied the veteran, the Admiral's chain moved like a snake in water.
It rapidly slithered through the wind and struck at its prey. The blade attached to its end expertly cut open the bellies of the Orcs and ran its sharp edge along their necks, slicing apart their throats and beheading many of them in an instant.
Amidst the chaos, Cain summoned his Status.
—----------------------||—-----------------------
Host: Cain
Species: Corrupted Enhanced-Human
Class: Lesser Evil
Rank: Neophyte
Souls Harvested: 198/1,000
Lost Souls Collected: 0
|Domain| |Shop| |Empower|
Strength: E+ -> D-
Endurance: E+ -> D-
Agility: E+ -> D-
Dexterity: E- -> E+
Intelligence: D+ -> C-
Spirit: D+ -> C-
Vigor: D+ -> C-
Abilities: |Blackout| |Corrupt Bullet| |Corrupt Slash| |Spirit Sight|
Items: |Neophyte Package| |Reapers Cloak|
—------------------------------------------------
Cain's eyes swept across his Status in a moment. All of his stats seemed to have upgraded due to his evolution; each of them increased by one sub-rank. The benefits gained were felt immediately, especially those that crossed the threshold into C rank.
Cain's Spirit felt smoother and cleaner. His mind operated quicker and Cain found himself recalling memories that had long been forgotten, memories of his fallen homeworld before the nuclear fallout.
In addition to his intelligence and Spirit stats, his vigor stat also upgraded to rank C and although Cain was still uncertain what exactly vigor did —" he felt incomparably stronger. His body felt more alive and his muscles in tune, as if Cain had more control over the minor functions of his body such as the intricacies of his muscles and the limitations his brain naturally placed on them.
Cain felt bigger too. He noticed it earlier, but he now stood a foot above Olive instead of a mere few inches. His hands seemed bigger, the floor felt further away, Cain had grown —" that much was obvious.
With all of his stats now in the D range, Cain felt godly. The Orcs around him gave him the impression of kids: none of them felt particularly threatening. Cain's danger sense simply didn't react to them. Even when studying their weapons, the oversized chunks of metal that they were, Cain knew that the dull-edged weapons would not be able to cut his skin —" his human, fleshy skin to be clear.
Cain still hadn't encountered anything able to pierce his black skin.
Speaking of his black skin, it had grown further up his arms and now consumed his shoulders. On the one hand, Cain appreciated the added defense that the black skin provided: it was a simple equation after all, more black skin equals more impenetrable parts of him, but the growth made him stop and wonder.
Will Cain's entire body eventually be pitch black? And since he could freely mold the shape of his black appendages, does that mean he'll eventually be able to manipulate the entirety of his shape?
Will Cain one day be able to entirely become a sword? What's the benefit in that?
Cain shook his head and closed his Status. He'll open his gift package later. He could tell that the Admiral was moments away from collapsing due to the shakiness and lethargy in his chain's movements. There were only a handful of green brutes left standing anyway, Olive could handle them, but Cain honestly wasn't sure where Olive went.
The girl miraculously disappeared after giving Cain his order. Speaking of Cain's order, the reason he stopped atop the edge of the crater instead of instantly slaughtering the entirety of the Orcs was to test the effects of Olive's commands.
Prior to dying in the jungle, all of Olive's commands, subtle or direct, presented Cain with an intense feeling of nagging at the back of his head. Like an itch that needed to be scratched or a cigarette just begging to be lit, Cain felt overwhelmingly enforced by his psyche to follow Olive's words to a T.
Now however, that foreboding feeling was gone.
The Admiral's chain shattered into a burst of white particles that slowly dissolved into the air. The old man collapsed to his knees, sweat dripped from his forehead onto the rubble beneath him and heavy breaths escaped from his lungs.
An Orc rushed towards him with a two-handed ax held high above its head, greedily begging to be swung down into the Admiral's skull.
Before the Orc could successfully approach, however, a black streak of lightning cracked into the green behemoth's temple. The Orc's head popped in a gruesome fashion and a fountain of blood and brain matter splattered across the Admiral's collapsed form.
Cain shot a few more |Corrupt Bullets| into the fray —" finally putting an end to the swarm of Orc's that assaulted them.
Cain hopped into the crater and began moving the rubble off of fallen and trapped survivors. He approached Admiral Adams and pulled him to his feet.
"Hey, thanks for all those souls." Cain patted the old man's back resulting in a subsequent coughing fit on the Admiral's behalf.
"Y-You're the demon?" The Admiral asked, perplexed.
He clearly recalled the voice of the being that spoke into his head that day many months ago. It was a voice the Admiral would never forget. A voice that rattled his very being, but the pale man standing above him did not look particularly ferocious at all.
He was definitely on the taller side of humanity, upwards of six foot five inches, and his black arms and irradiant eyes certainly added to his fantastical charm, but the Admiral had seen human's back on Earth tattoo their entire body black —" it wasn't terribly uncommon.
"Demon-shmemon am I right?" Cain laughed loudly while assaulting the Admirals back in the name of patting it again.
"Just call me Cain." Cain ultimately settled with.
"Hey guys!"
It was then that Olive's voice cut through the groans of the recuperating survivors. She arrived at the edge of the crater above them.
In her grasp, an Orc with a silver crown was bent at his knees. His arms had been tied behind his back and Olive held a dagger to the Orc's throat —" pushing it sternly into his neck and drawing blood.
"I found this one trying to get away! He looks pretty important, you know with the crown and all!" Olive smiled vindictively.
The Orc King struggled in Olive's grasp, but with her blade pressed tightly against his windpipe — the Orc King gurgled incomprehensible lines.
The Admiral immediately gazed bloody murder at the Orc King. Noticing his blood-thirsty gaze, Cain offered his services.
"What? You wanna get up there?" Cain asked.
Before the Admiral could even reply, Cain grabbed the old man under his arms and jumped out of the crater. Soaring through the air, Cain easily jumped thirty feet up and landed delicately on the cracked stone above.
Olive tensed at the Admiral's presence, but the old man completely ignored her.
He wrapped his fingers around the Orc King's neck. Grasping at straws, the Admiral desperately directed any remnants of mana that remained within him towards his fingers. Then, an orange glow spread from his finger-tips and seeped into the Orc King's flesh.
Moments later, the Orc King's throat turned to goo. It melted into an abomination of liquid muscle tissue and blood. The decaying substance flowed down the Admiral's fingers and ran down his arm.
The Admiral knelt down and stared into the King's eyes. Watching the light escape, the Admiral grinned full-heartedly.
"Olive —" The Admiral looked up while wiping the rotten blood off his fingers, "where are the rest of my men?"
"Dead." Olive answered indifferently.
"Well. . . I suppose I should be glad that the two most important remain." The Admiral peeled his lips back and exposed his yellow teeth.
"I should also probably tell you that the thirteenth never came. We waited all day, into night, until the Goblin horde reached us." Olive glared at the Admiral.
"Is that so?" The Admiral's eyes gleamed.
Then, a new notification interrupted their conversation.
[World Sub-Boss Defeated]
[Gate Link Connected]
[Score Calculated: C-]
[Tutorial Complete]
[Planet Code Name: Earth-117 Added to Registry]
[30 Days Until Next Trial]
The vision of the survivors simultaneously went black, but not for very long. As if they blinked, one second the Admiral and Olive found themselves in a bloodied and distraught coliseum, the next in a frosty grass field.
Mountains fraught with snow painted their background and a wide lake separated the field of grass with the snowy mountains, although the lake had already frozen over due to the temperature.
"Ahh!! Mama! Mama! They're strangers in the garden!" A young boy's voice echoed through the wide-open fields and traveled far over the lake.
Distraught, the eyes of the various survivors turned towards the child's voice. There, they saw a young blonde boy wearing a red t-shirt and baggy jeans running towards a small square home at the edge of a village.
Many homes were spread throughout the grassy hills, all of them square in shape with black slanted roofs. The homes stood in various colors: most of them red, while some of them were painted bright green, blue, and yellow.
Woven throughout the homes, a black street connected the small town and led further beyond the grassy plains —" towards a bustling city off in the distance, built alongside the rocky coast of this continent.
The sky above was bright blue and a single sun shone white high above.
"Are we. . . back?" Olive asked rhetorically, but couldn't stop herself from believing anyway.
The little blonde boy returned with his mother, a beautiful woman pregnant with another child. She wore a white bonnet and a whimsical dress fluttered around her ankles. Blonde and blue-eyed just like her son, upon seeing the crowd of strangers surrounding her home she quickly whipped out her smartphone and began recording the strange group of people.
"Who the hell are you?!" The mother yelled above the brisk winds, "Don't test me! I'm live on Social right now! Three thousand people are watching your every move!"
"Yeah. . ." Olive sighed, "we're back."
///////
Walkingbush, Romance_guy, and DevilGod_of_Chaos THANK YOU for the power stones….. and Hooverfh for the comments. You guys know I reply to everything, right? (Mostly don't quote me on that)