[Meanwhile]
In a slightly dark forest stood a male, adorned on him was pure white apparel with not a single blemish on it. The male had short silverish hair that glimmered in the night and unique pink eyes that were filled with a calm light.
Beside him was the guard who had tried to capture Feral but failed, reporting the situation of the chase.
“Lord Ezekiel had called me personally to apprehend this rogue angel and besiege the two other creatures as well, therefore, I shall not let this mission fail. Make sure to increase the chasers, and try to find a competent geographer who can corner the young male so I can personally capture him. As for sister… I am highly disappointed in her,” Orinda said with a disgusted look unbefitting of his holy visage.
“Shall I pass that message too, my lord?”
“No, I shall personally see sister when this is done.”
***
“Ha… ha… ha… come on Zero you’ve got to have something!” Dina exclaimed in panic as she watched her chasers rapidly approach her; any slower than they were she'd be dead.
Not to mention the tiredness was getting to Feral. In the end, while the chasers were trained combatants for years he was just a simple elf with the bare minimum for training! Dina regretted not pouring more points into her endurance but seeing how her speed was outmatching her pursuers she reconsidered, she just didn’t have enough points!
“Zero help!”
“You can always borrow…”
“You told me that there are consequences for a sudden excess increase of a stat point and even you can’t control when it hits!”
“I have a medicine in the shop to help that too, just borrow.”
Dina: Damn scammer!
Zero: It’s called business (҂⌣̀_⌣́)
“Fine then, let’s see who’ll suffer with me when we fail this mission! Hmph!”
Just then, an arrow slid right by Feral’s ear leaving a gashing slice that spurted blood startling him and nearly causing him to lose balance from the tree he was on.
This was enough for his pursuers to close the distance and just when one of them could leap at him he drew his bow and in that split second shot him down. When it came to his archery, no matter what situation they landed in he had been practicing non-stop, and with his addition to speed and agility shooting an arrow in a split second became quite easy.
“Come on Zero don’t do this to me!”
“Host why not try the demonic link exercise the target taught you?”
“What… oh! Oh! Of course! I completely forgot! But would it even work with his condition?”
“You’ll have to try to find out Dina.”
The demonic link was a practice, uniquely between aqua demons and their slave, however, it required a deep bond and something similar to tolerance with each other to work which was why it was mostly never used. After all, every slave never wanted to be one in the first place so which bond exactly could they create with their master apart from that of hatred and fear? If one was lucky enough however to create that bond like Feral and Genad then it could become a powerful weapon.
Allowing one to draw up to 50% power from their partner, although it didn’t let them use the other’s abilities, it could help them tap into their innate features like increased stats and if possible, let the slaves be able to use demonic power or dark magic to a certain extent.
“It connected! I just thought I wanted to connect to Genad and boom it just did! Although it’s not even up to 15%, it’s manageable. Now to use it…”
To connect the link was one thing but to use the powers was another. Because dark magic ran on darkness just like holy magic ran on purity, it was easy for demons to use dark magic due to the inborn darkness within but not for normal people; If Feral wanted to use the power he had to stimulate the darkness within him.
The negative thoughts, the deeper they were the better but at the same time one must strike to maintain a delicate balance between their darkness and self, or else they’d be consumed by the darkness.
“And that’s why it’s so fucking difficult! However, I’ll just have Zero help me with the balance stuff. Zero, warn me if it gets too much okay?”
“Alright.”
Stimulating the link drawn between his master and him, Feral felt a rush of power within him, and the more negative emotions he incurred the more power enveloped him. Thankfully, there were quite a lot of negative emotions piling up and all Dina needed was a few thoughts to get them spilling.
Tapping into his negative emotions of tiredness, resentfulness, anger, reluctance, and a whole lot more, Feral could feel his power growing and soon he could feel his body getting lighter than before.
“Zero. Show me my stats please!”
*** I noticed I didn’t add the agility stat last time, sorry.
[Ding!
Strength: 42 (+10)
Speed: 50 (+10)
Endurance: 15 (+10)
Agility: 25 (+10)
Luck: 10
Looks: 150
Intelligence: 200
Points remaining: 1500]
“Even though I was gifted five times the beginner points I still squandered the whole 5000 points am so heartbroken… but considering 1 stat point is 100 points and I just saved 4000 points am a bit delighted.”
Having now had a drastic increase in stats, Feral who had been slacking instantly gave his pursuers a considerable gap. Before they could react he had sneakily managed to merge in with the darkness which became easier due to his recent affinity with dark magic by the link.
By the time the legion chasing him found not a single trace they had no choice but to stop and revise their strategy giving Feral enough time to escape even deeper into the words.
Meanwhile, the guard came back to news with Orinda, and having found a geographer they took another route which was a shortcut to where Feral was headed leaving Feral ignorant of what was coming at him.
***
After making sure he had lost his pursuers, Feral sat on top of a tree while taking bated breaths. He wasn’t sure of where he was but he guessed that he was within one of the forests in the human race. For now, the plan would be to completely escape the area after resting for a bit.
“Damn this power-up is great, I was so tired I thought I would die before but now I just feel slightly worn out! Am not even surprised Genad’s level is something else that bastard,” Dina wondered out loud as she bought a water bottle from the system.
While pondering which direction to follow amidst the vast area of the forest, Feral felt a sudden sharp presence and without a single glance back instantly flopped to the floor just in time to avoid the fire that rapidly encroached the branch he had been on.
‘But how…?!’ Dina thought in a panic.
Only warriors and archers had been after Feral and now he had lost them, a mage and not just anyone but a fire mage had appeared! This was extremely detrimental to him due to the nature of his surroundings, not only would the light dispel his camouflage they'd also burn the forest leaving him in a much worse situation!
“Fuck!”
“Where might you be going?! I’m impressed with how far you’ve made it and even more of your skills, even with your speed there's barely any sound on the leafy floor! You’ve been trained well haven’t you, you sinner?!” Orinda chattered as he leisurely leaped from tree to tree, sending infernos one after the other at Feral who could barely dodge them and was left seared on multiple occasions.
He could only avoid the flames as much as he could while running but on seeing the leisureliness of the male adding to the guard behind him that had barely moved he knew they were just playing with him. To them, he was already doomed and there was no escape, he couldn’t even access the trees as he’d be risking being burnt with them.
‘And running here means I can’t make sense of where am going. I can see clearly but I don’t know shit of where I am headed! Zero can’t you help me?’
‘I apologize but I cannot unless you’d like to purchase an item to help?’
Dina brightened up at this, asking, “Which item?”
“Unfortunately, your balance is too low, would you like to borrow?”
“Fuck off (╬凸｀∩´)凸”
“Affirmative.”
Dina was so pissed off she contemplated going all out and attacking the duo but that’d deathing herself because if those two got serious then that’ll be it for her. On the other hand, they’d eventually get tired of playing and attack leaving her defenseless either way. In this situation what was she to do?!
Just when all hopes seemed to be lost an idea finally clicked in her mind and without hesitation, she decided to execute it; not like she had a choice anyway.
Sliding four arrows from his sheath, Feral sneakily hid his actions with lingers of the darkness that had been nearly cleared away by the flames and while Orinda was getting ready another inferno to harass him, he struck!
“Huh? Where…?”
Using the VR to temporarily place both in an illusion bind, with a swift turn and aim Feral directly shot at their vital points snapping them from the illusion while simultaneously incapacitating them and without glancing back instantly leaped to a tree bursting with speed as he sped up in the dark.
“MY EMISSARY!” the guard yelled devastated as he found himself unable to move a single fiber of his muscle. He felt a sharp pain sizzling through him and only then did he realize the quick rotting of his injury and the darkness that was slipping into his body bit by bit.
It was dark magic and it was rapidly eroding his body! Dark magic was a deadly poison that corroded any non-demonic creature met with, which was why the guard who was only but a human warrior was in serious trouble.
Meanwhile, Orinda was already up and fuming. Due to his healing ability, he was able to quickly get rid of the dark magic and heal himself but the thought that he had been fooled by a demon worshipper had him buried in an avalanche of shame.
‘My lord would be extremely disappointed… I must capture that savage!’ he thought with rage.
“Lord Orinda! My emissary are you okay?” the guard called out worriedly, he’d be so dead if one of the most important human emissaries for worship was injured. Even his life was petty in comparison!
“I’m alright dear. You poor soul, let me free you of this defilement,” Orinda stated with a pitiful look before bending over to heal the male amidst his cries to leave his ‘useless self’.
“My emissary what shall we do next?” the guard now exhausted stated, although he had been healed only the surface injury was healed which meant the strain from the injury was still there. Only a real angel’s healing could completely replenish that.
“You rest and I WILL GO AFTER THAT VERMIN!”
***
It was an insane battle, Feral was already halfway through his escape when a pissed-off Orinda besieged him, and from then on he couldn’t avoid fighting.
Amidst the rain of flames and curses all Feral could do was poorly dodge while shooting a few unsuccessful arrows. His endurance was rapidly dropping and he could feel his body giving up from the strain.
He suddenly felt fearful that if they dragged this out too long… something terrible would happen.
“DAMN IT ALL!”
Finally having had enough, Feral bit deeply into his tongue enough to draw blood and stimulate his heavy body, and with his wind energy along with the help of the wind item Genad had gifted him he appeared right in front of Orinda, floating a few feet away.
“Ha! You finally showed yourself, coward!” Orinda stated with glaring pink orbs while panting heavily. He too had used too much magic out of rage and the strain was now getting to him, but right now he would end it.
‘This fucker!’
Feral’s eyes flashed coldly with killing intent and without waiting for Orinda to complete his spell, drew an arrow which he coated with thick dark magic whilst stating viciously, “DIE.”
SWOOSH!
The arrow sliced through the wind and accurately hit its target.
Orinda gaped silently as blood flowed through his mouth. Looking down at his heart which was being rapidly corroded by demonic magic he slowly looked up to Feral who was still staring with a blank look and with a trembling voice muttered, “M-may y-yo-our s-si-ins jud-dge thee….”
THUD!
“And to you too.”
And with that, it was over.
Glancing silently at the fallen corpse, Feral ran away into the darkness with a trembling body. For the first time ever… he had killed a person.