[Ego's brilliance: Beginner - Show your light to all and purify that which denies you.]
'That is literally the least information I ever got out of a skill description. It seems to have maintained its corrosive and burning properties though, so I didn't get a downgrade.' Aki thought as several people came to shake the hero's hand. Some whispered he was someone from the church of light that had received a mission to rid them of the evil on the surroundings, that they had already known there would be a plage of undead and sent a hidden warrior to deal with it.
He quite doubted that was anywhere near the truth, but it was good that the people here believed in him. After all...
"In a few hours, the hero will depart towards the dark chasm! So as to assure rapid and certain extermination of the undead, he has asked for our cooperation. That we accompany him and make sure he can kill all of our enemies. As of now, all members of our city council will be going, with the exception of secretary Grayson, who will be in charge as I myself follow up with the proceedings. Neither I or the hero will be forcing you, any adult that can accompany the procession is welcome to join. The march will begin two hours from now so as to capitalise on the time. That is all." Explained the calm mayor, more assured of success but still only allowing for such due to the pressure to do exactly this building up like crazy on the public.
Aki would have loved to simply walk around and collect the mana pollution, using it as a way to always have a full tank, but the process simply destabilised it too much. Keeping it on his body would be impossible for him, the mental burn simply too much for the small amount he could obtain for himself instead of just using the destabilised version in his attacks. Taking it from another person was much easier, but only if there was no... resistance.
"Goodness I am an idiot." He murmured, running away from the town the moment he was alone. After a fifteen minute sprint in the direction of his enemies, Aki found a couple of zombies that were completely lost, simply rotting on the sun.
Quickly searing their arms off with four radiance enchanted knife strikes, he was sitting on the torso of one while holding the other by the neck, but lazily trying to bite him in a quite comical way.
It took a bit for him to enter a meditative state like this, but when he pulled...
*Crack, Flush, splot*
The zombie literally melted in his hand. Bones cracking and turning to dust, skin sloshing off and meat falling to the ground in a darkening pile because there were no more nerves remaining.
Aki immediately burned both the matter on his hand and on the ground to ashes, washing the stench and the overmana away, but saw that something like this could give him the same amount of magic a normal person generally had in their body.
That also ment he'd need to be careful with it though, because just now he'd only surpassed his reservoir's limit by a measly four, yet he felt like he was completely stuffed, his body a bit hot.
Instead of draining the downed zombie though, he decided to use it as a demonstration. If ten people held zombies so he could absorb.... Yeah, no, that was quite the close call. There was no way a lich would not know a corpse explosion variant. It'd be better if he himself used this tactic once during the battle and them launched a devastating atta....
*Fuoo, clink*
Taking out the sword he'd borrowed from the village, Aki masterfully hit the almost silent arrow zooming in for his head, immediately gaining the related skills, which was not actually so useful at the moment. Turning his energy sight on, he saw a faint outline in the distance, stopping his gaze for but a moment before another arrow came, this time from another direction.
He pulled on the mana bellow him with his foot, the zombie escaping his grip as he'd taken a sword out. Full again, he felt his body burn from the inside, shoving mana and intent on a roar before sending two light rays as thick as his fists towards the blurs he saw. This burned at least half his mana, but as he reinforced his body and dodged another arrow with a lunge towards one of those he'd hit, ignoring a fourth or fifth arrow that had stuck itself to his back, he pulled on all that was the man in black light armor that had suddenly appeared on the open plain.
Energy filled him again, the system indicating he'd gained another skill, likely life steal as he was turning the man into something close to a mummy, so he made a shield of hard light, luckily one of the two things he knew how to turn into a non-newtonian material. He didn't know what the dying man bellow him was trying to do or say, but the hole on his stomach pretty much guaranteed his death even without him sucking the literal life out of his marrow, so he was basically just experiencing all of the suffering he would already see at a much faster rate.
Standing a bit bellow full, Aki threw the corpse still in armor to the left before lunging towards the right while reinforcing his waist and legs with plenty of energy, an arrow hitting his left shoulder though he supposed it'd been coming for his head. There was a cold feeling on the area hit, so he pulled on that too, hoping it was something he could convert.
The answer turned out to be no, but he could feel and hear the poison had lost effect partially through his system notifications, the battle log a fucking mess he would be playing with later. A blot of dark mana was trying to run from him, but he filled the sword in his right hand with brilliance, the blade growing and detaching for even more length, cutting off a bloody leg no longer invisible.
Something was stirring inside of him as Aki threw himself on against the falling body, but the mana the man had gathered even blocked two more arrows as an even bigger shield of light appeared, feeding his captor back to half energy with what he could only guess was a suicide technique, which turned out to simply allow for him to suffer for longer under his grasp as what were now clearly magical projectiles impacted the shield.
Instead of focusing his energy, the concentrating young man spread it, sending a horizontal slash at waist height through his own shield, which had no problem propagating the attack from what he felt moments before deactivating it.
Running forward, he saw two man and a translucid figure dodging his attack, one of them losing an arm as he threw himself to the side too late, the ghost simply floating up and the other guy dodge rolling towards it.
He shoved a ray of light in the direction of the guy rolling, making him practically cut himself against his attack, though it seemed to only sear part of his scalp and arm away, Aki readily changed it's trajectory on his already desperate enemy, putting the ray on a diagonal rise that burned away the back of the human's head and cut the ghost in half, allowing only for it to cry like a banshee as it dissipated.
Looking around, the fresh out of a fight young man did not see any more hidden figures besides the guy trying to pretend he didn't have a seared cut instead of a shoulder, so he relaxed a bit, but still strode towards the man trying to explode himself. Suffice to say he failed miserably, his hair graying a bit on the process.
"Hey buddy, let me see that for you." Said the tired Aki as he removed the arrow from his torso while shoving his hardly moving hand into the man's mouth as he healed himself. A cursory investigation with his energy showed him exactly where the poison containers were. Even with strength being his worst attribute, his bare hands were more than enough to remove them and the teeth replacement. "Now then, from one to ten, how would you say your pain resistance stacks? I'm pretty low on mana, so waking you up from shock isn't on my to do list. Of course, you can always just tell me everything and I will swiftly kill you."
*****
An hour and a half after he left, Aki returned to the city, latching himself inside the mayor's house and only leaving when it was time for the procession. It'd be a couple of hours before they reached their destination even if only the fastest people were going, so people were kind of in a hurry so they could take advantage of the sun, where their enemies would be slightly restrained.
The twenty or so villargers that followed ended having it rough, though most had become rather used to taxing themselves these last few days.
Obviously though, Aki himself wasn't there. No, he'd given up on taking out all of the information the agent he'd captured had on the small amount of time he had, instead asking for his base's location. Turns out it wasn't so far away from the valley they had to attack, and he had a lot more speed than everyone else, so getting there was quite easy, specially with the mana rich enviroment feeding his enhancement, though it did tire his mind a bit to simply be bounding here and there while converting the dark mana into neutral tipe, which had a general feeling of being boundless, everything all at once.
Instead, he took a break and thought of an alternative. Yes, he gave up that easily. There was no meaning in geting somewhere he knew he would be battling at just to be pelted to death because he was too tired.
A shadow movement technique? He didn't really have any idea on how to do that, but even if he halfassed something and it worked, it might be just as tiring since he was standing in a plain and under the almost midday sun, meaning it'd be using a shit ton of energy on a not so saturated enviroment, meaning he'd be the one straining themselves to fill in the requirements just as he was doing now.
Then sudenly, he was striked down by an idea. As his impatience started to buble up before he could calm himself again, Aki began to murmur a song, and that hit him. How long had he spent without music inside and outside of the game? He had over a thousand saved musics on his phone, plenty of which he knew by heart and should be able to sing well enough now. Running his mind through his inner playlist and caught on the perfect song for his need, from DuaLipa and DaBaby.
The surroundings became darker, his smile sweet, murmurs to the passing wind told to as if to a lover, small dots of light peeked out of his influence as his swift steps left him floating in the air moments more than he touched the ground, yet his speed refused to decrease. By the time the song ended, instead of stopping or repeating everything, he sung Arctic monkeys, a haze of illusion obcuring his body in the plains, the image of a beautiful seductress being much more attention catching inside the mirage. Imagine dragons had him leaping long distances, the wind houling sorrowfully as his diminishing figure seemed to search for someone and yet run from where their heart said they'd find them. Rixton showed him as a frail figure, eyes holding tears of pure blackness as darkness filled his back and front, unwillingness to let the circunstances held only by his own search of love.
And that was it. Four-fifteen minutes of runing had him there under the speed he demonstrated by pushing further and further on skills he only just received. He'd convinced the own world that he should be faster, the energy in the air resisting less and less as he sung with his own heart. And the system, his only audience, loved it.