He struggled to move his arm, struggling to lift his heavy axe.
'No...'
'Don't give in...'
With a deep sigh, Raven raised his axe high above his head, letting loose a roar as his body glowed bright purple and black; his skin had changed once more, becoming hard as steel with cracks running across his entire body, as purple veins began to appear along the length of his body, that pain from the daytime in the gym he could feel his muscles twisting, snapping under the forced pressure, but he had no choice!
Boom!
Sparks erupted around his limbs as he swung downwards with unbelievable force, crushing the rocky floor beneath his feet, as he shoved his axes into the ground, forming a massive pit below him, swallowing everything within his reach, as huge rocks and lava shot into the air, stopping several of the balls of flame, but four managed to break through the debris, his shoulder, abdomen and right cheek hit by the boiling balls of fire.
"Shit!"
'This isn't good.'
"Ugh!!!!" Raven's eyes filled with tears of blood as the flames began to melt his flesh, charring the bones in his body, as he felt the very life seeping and slipping away from him, causing his eyes to grow tired. It didn't matter if he could resist damage and endure pain and torture.
Pain coursed through every inch of his body as he screamed, dropping his axe and collapsing to his knees, coughing up copious amounts of blood.
'Don't sleep.... don't fade.....Push through!'
"Ahhhhhhh!!" Marie wailed as she tried desperately to escape from the molten rock. Still, her movements were too slow, as two rocks fell from the huge movements of Raven, causing her legs to be crushed. She screamed in pain, watching as the flames exploded and engulfed Raven, thinking she won and let out a crazed cackle despite her horrid body.
Then came silence, save for the sounds of screaming and cries of agony. In a state of a blur, Raven dragged himself with limping legs, sliding them across the ground as he reached Marie, knocking the boulders off the ground, before grabbing her hair, yanking it and dragging her towards the centre of the room, her broken legs splitting and tearing as she became an amputee.
"No.... fuck..... stop...! Please... Please help me! I'll do anything....!" She begged, but the only response was his sharp tail, smashing her face, causing a dark bruise under her eyes, and her teeth shattered, leaving her with only gums and a flailing tongue.
Inside, his body burned with violent purple energy; if he didn't expel it from his muscles and flesh, he would suffer the rebound and even die from the whole body's empowerment.
"W....what are you going to do to her!?" Colin uttered as he knelt moments away from the now haggard Marie, her chest hanging out, not too big but an average size.
"R...RAVEN!" Brin shouted as he watched the orc roughly grasp her chest, pulling it tight, almost tearing them from her body as she let out a strange gasp of pleasure and pain, now urinating like a filthy dog.
"Oh... you know my name if I bully your mistress? Don't worry; I'll end your pathetic lives after I finish with her. For the sake of the many demihumans that were killed, let's have this slut restore my body and increase my power. So I can kill more of you fucking cultists in the future!"
Both Colin and Brin's eyes opened wide as they started to froth at their mouths, "THE ONE TRUE GOD IS HUMAN!! THE DUNGEONS CAME TO OUR WORLD! THE SAVIOUR IS GREAT! THE SAVIOUR IS HOLY! OUR RADIANT DAWN SHALL COME!"
'Tsk... fucking cultists of the radiant dawn'
"Well... Let's see if it comes before or after I drown this female pig." Raven said as he found her eyes filled with tears and terror rather pleasing.
He lowered his pants as his mind grew increasingly clouded with rage and anger that came from somewhere deep inside him as flashbacks of high school played back once again, the students chaining him to a wall, beating him in turns with wooden sticks and planks due to his strong body...
They said he violated the girl he was dating, despite her asking him out... her begging him to go all the way with her, that if he loved her, he would. Now acting like it was true as she watched them happily torture and beat him for hours.
'Humans... No... not humans, but bigots! There are more good humans than bad!'
"Mnnngh!?" The sounds of a woman choking and gagging soon filled the caverns, slowly turning into a pleasant and passionate sucking and slurping as the voices of two men seemed to scream in despair, seeing their former lover serving the filth that invaded their radiant world.
Over an hour passed, maybe more, as Raven awoke from his stupor; his eyes opened wide, looking around him as his brain fought to comprehend what happened; he felt strange anger during the pain, wanting to punish them further...
"What the hell?" He murmured, finding himself lying on the cold earth, his clothes torn and burnt; he was completely naked, his body was fully recovered; in the centre of the room were Colin and Brin.
Their faces were filled with despair and horror as dried pools of blood were lying below them, while in the centre of their gazes was Marie, her legs crushed, her upper body revealed with large claw marks and thick bruises from her fingers, her lower body untouched. Still, her mouth was filled with foam and strange fluids, snapped and unhinged, and her neck bent in a strange direction.
Yet... She had a blissful smile on her face.
A sense of disgust and regret began to fill Raven's body, his hands trembling slightly as he took a spare pair of clothes from his item ring; the flaming caves no longer felt warm to him; if anything, since he awoke, it felt like home, or a nice temperature to bathe.
'Am I becoming a monster?'
He looked at his hands, perfectly smooth and lacking any wounds or marks, the places destroyed by the fireballs fully recovered and even softer than before, now noticing that his cultivation had reached the second stage of Gate 1.
o-- Cultivation Stage: [Gateway of Awakening] Stage 2
But something else caused his heart and blood to surge, forced to check his complete status to make sure it wasn't a dream as he began to kick the corpses of the three people into the lava, watching their bodies melt and dissolve in bubbles.
He didn't know if their bodies would be spat from the entrance when he left or would fade into the dungeon as even the bureau didn't tell you what happened to dead adventurers, maybe to avoid betrayals.
o-- Alistair "Raven" Granbell
o-- Chimera (Manticore / High Orc)
o-- Age 28 (Visually 21)
o-- Blood Type O-Z1
o-- Level: 1
o-- Class: Dread Knight
o-- Experience: 0/10
o-- Cultivation: The Twelve Gates Of Bliss (Manticore Only)
o-- Cultivation Realm: Gate 1 [Gateway of Awakening]
o-- Cultivation Stage: Stage 2
o-- Credits: 375
Attributes (Average = 1)
Strength: 3.9
Agility: 1.6
Stamina: 5.6
Vitality: 5.8
Intellect: 2.9
Wisdom: 2.2
o-- Skills:
Manticore's Heart (Passive) [Level 1] - Increases Vitality and Stamina regeneration at all times, creating the perfect mate for a female Manticore.
Shadow Strike [Level 1] - Dash towards an enemy and brutalise them with a dark strike causing heavy shadow damage, ignoring defence.
5-second cooldown
Stamina -0.5
Wisdom -0.1
Dread Aura [Level 1] - Cause fear to all enemies around you, slowing their actions for 2 seconds and 6 seconds after you take 20% reduced damage, but upon the end of the effect, you will take 50% more damage for 10 seconds
12-second cooldown
No cost
-
His actions with Marie seemed to have increased not his vitality and stamina like with Miriam, but rather his intellect and wisdom had increased slightly, rather than anything else.
While he checked the Dread Knight class by tapping it, the system the guild made showed.
[Dread Knight: Unknown Class, Rare] [Strength + 0.3 and Vit +0.2 Per Level]
"Guess I'll ask Emily when I have the chance..."
Raven felt no sense of victory or joy, just like in the past when he managed to break the ropes binding him, beating everyone that tortured him half to death; only the eyes of the girl that said she would stay by his side forever, now looked at him with fearful and trembling eyes.