*Bark! Bark!*
I woke up on the middle of the night…
*Bark!*
I looked at my side and found Rose sleeping peacefully with the earplugs I gave her.
*Bark!*
Stupid dog…
_________________________________
Earlier that day….
After Dante noticed its presence, we found it sleeping inside a box in an alley.
While we moved there, Dante explained to me that as I thought, the dog was able to change and move through the Shadows Realm.
After what happened last time I wasn't sure that we would be able to kill it through normal means. I was going to use my ability to lock the space around the box to make him unable to escape from there.
The process was fast, and when the chihuahua woke up, it was already a prisoner and couldn't leave the box o escape to the shadow realm. It surprised me that it woke up so soon since the number of sleeping pills on the meat should be enough to make it sleep a lot more (if not forever), but after remembering that it survived Hayley's Shatter, it wasn't that amazing.
With half the mission done I went back in Rose's direction to rejoin the rest of the team and go back home. They had just killed a second beast that Rose found on their way to find me.
I asked Mark and Hayley about Sophie's performance after I left and as expected besides the one she missed when I left, she had a perfect aim for the rest of the fight and killed the goat after two more shots, after that, Sophie surprised everyone when she one-shot the second beast they find, an oversized bird.
After telling me about Sophie, they noticed the chihuahua barking on the box and looked at me as if wanting an explanation.
To be honest, I wasn't sure how to kill it after Hayley's ability failed, so trapping it and preventing it from running away was my priority until I solve this issue.
After going back home, I created a spatial lock in a kennel at the roof and left the dog there.
And that left us in this situation…
___________________________________
When we arrived, I first tried different kinds of poisons without much success, despite what Dante says, burning it alive doesn't feel right. Also, this kind of demonic beings might not be affected by the fire as they come from hell.
*BARK*
But... I'm thinking of trying it right now.
Rose's ability couldn't be used either since I had locked the space to no let it escape, that includes going to the Astral Realm.
Rose is stronger than me (at least from the system POV), so it's possible that she might break my block if she wants, but since it can go to the Shadow Realm from here, he might be able to do it from the Astral realm too and ends escaping.
There is one thing that I have left to try… soul poison is available now in the system shop, but it's more expensive than the reward.
*Bark*
…
I stood up and went to the roof…
____________________________________
The fire didn't work either…
*Bark*
This time I saw what actually happened the dog's ashes acted as if they were alive, they regrouped and regenerated the dog again as if nothing happened.
The chihuahua itself was made of shadows, and shadows don't freeze nor burn, its special physiology filled me with questions as I didn't have an explanation for how a DNA mutation might do this… the evolution theory behind every ability was good enough to explain the lower-tier powers, but this was already in a level where it was impossible to predict what can we find.
I was ready to spend 500 EP on a strong soul poison, but I decided to try something else first.
I started by reinforcing the spatial lock around the kennel. This was the first time that I would try to apply more rule breaks on just one place.
If videogames taught me something was that light and dark were opposite elements, and physics taught me that shadows can't exist without light.
What if I don't let light reach? Or if I fill the kennel with light and left no space for shadows?
I thought for a few seconds the right way to do both of them. I didn't want to see the effect, so I slowly made an area that reflected the light back to space. I was careful as I didn't want it to be focused on a single place, but it was a lot more tiring and challenging than what I thought.
As I applied the refracting and reflection layers, I also checked that the spatial lock was still on. At some point, Rose appeared next to me and without using words she helped me using the share thoughts ability to lighten my burden.
Changing rules not related to time or space was more difficult due to my lack of knowledge of them, but I was able to slowly enforce them despite that.
I was wondering if it would be enough for it to die or it would only prevent it from getting into the shadow form. As I was thinking about it, I noticed that I leveled up one of my skills.
[Concentration Level up Lv. 1 ->Lv. 2]
The result was a weird view.
It was noon, but in the middle of the roof, there was a complete area that was colder than the rest and filled in darkness. I still could see the dog's aura, but it was slowly getting weaker.
The aura changed its form and moved around the kennel trying to leave before it was clear that it was a little animal, but now it was formless, just a mass of "dark-light" that remains from the aura.
If I had to guess this means that the soul doesn't have a physical body to rely on anymore.
The idea is similar to what would happen to a Fire elemental in a vacuum, without oxygen to burn. It would slowly disappear (unless it had magic at its source).
Losing the physical body, it was just a matter of time for the chihuahua to completely disappear and I saw it happen.
I was looking at it, but even that way I wasn't able to notice the moment that it completely disappeared until I got the notification from the system.
[Congratulations for Killing the first C-Rank beast, 150 system points and Surprise box rewarded]
[Mission: Find and eliminate the corrupted beasts (4/5).
Type: Chain (3/3)
Reward: 50 EP, 1AP, 2 SP (Per kill) (4/5)
Obtained Rewards: 200 EP, 2 AP, 4SP;
Teammates Rewards: Rose (Wis+1, Metaphysics exp obtained), Hayley (Int+1, Survival Exp obtained)
Time Limit: 15d 06h 31m 28s]
That piece of sh*t was a C-Rank!!! No wonder it was so annoying…
Seeing my dumbfounded Rose giggled.
"What did you expect? It can survive Hayley's attack, and escape Dante's and my surveillance."
She was right, but still, the other high ranked beast I have met were huge, the chihuahua being so strong was entirely out of character. Well, Dante isn't big, and he is way stronger now that I think of it.
As I looked at the notification, I noticed that this was indeed the first time I killed a C-Rank beast, and the surprise box should be as good as the one that I got from Jamie.
Since Sophie didn't knew about my powers I will have to open it in another moment and give the stuff as I see fit…
___________________________________
Later that night I was in the room and a gift box was at the bed.
The box has improved a little since last time, it still gave us random regular stuff, this time was clothes that Rose was splitting accordingly to who it probably it's for.
I wasn't interested in the regular stuff and went for the tickets right away. Instead of two tickets for special objects, this one came with 3 tickets, and according to the system, the things that can come from it are better than before due to the expansion of the system's store.
The tickets gave 1 blueprint for a hover car that included an energy core and some unique parts, a stylish women's coat that I decided to give to Isabella for protection and two claws that Rose wanted, even if she usually doesn't fight, her ability to ambush was top notch, and a good weapon would make her deadlier.
The EP ticket was improved compared to the one I got from Jamie's box, and instead of giving me 1-100 EP it gave 10-1000, I got about 600 EP from that ticket.
Finally, the last was an E-Rank ticket that as always could be used by anyone.
[Causality Perception]
The ability to perceive and understand the cause-effect relations and deduce the path that could lead to a specific outcome.