After a long arduous battle, it was now time for Veritas to reap his rewards.
Immediately, Veritas gazed upon his soul and opened his runes. Veritas then saw the new line of text below his Avatar, it read:
[Soul Storage:
(1) Eye of the Kraken. ]
Seeing the new appear inside his soul, he could only feel ecstatic. This was really good! As an Impure Pathbearer, owning 1 or more Lost Souls could greatly strengthen his arsenal.
Veritas then gazed at the newfound item and read its description.
[Eye of the Kraken]
[Soul Rank: Pure]
[Origin:
An eye from the leviathan of the seas, the Kraken once conquered and owned a territory within the Silent Seas, killing everything that attempted to challenge his authority. Hoping to expand its territory, it went to a human city and rampaged, killing everything on site. Once it had entered a tower that seemed to climb towards heaven, it suddenly turned into gold. Due to its size, the transmutation took a significant amount of time. Now, only its bright red eye remained.]
[Passive Skills:
(1) Glowing Eye.
- You have enhanced vision under the seas, you can see slightly better in the dark, and you can see much clearer distances.]
(2) Overlord of the Seas.
- You are damaged less by water based attacks, you are more familiar with the water, and the water bows down to you.
[Active Skills:
(1) Authority of the Leviathan.
- A sovereign of the depths showed authority to those weaker than it. You can gaze upon anything and immediately infect it with fear. ]
Reaching the end of the text, Veritas was pleased with the situation. Although the Lost Soul only had a single active skill, it seemed like it was pretty useful and strong! Adding more to that were the two passive skills that are very versatile. The two skills helped greatly with his situation as he is drowned by darkness and surrounded by water.
Veritas decided to try the newfound power that he had received. Upon gazing towards his soul, he summoned Eye of the Kraken.
Veritas immediately felt weird, one of his eyes seemed to get clearer vision and he could see better in the dark. It turns out that the Eye of the Kraken replaced his right eye.
His right eye was now replaced by a glowing red one! If one were to gaze upon this eye, then that individual would feel as if their soul were being stared upon.
It would take a while to get used to his new vision but nevertheless, the eye seemed to be working properly. His vision got better and he could see his surroundings now. He no longer had to rely on the winds to observe his surroundings.
He scanned his surroundings and saw the gigantic body of the Golden Octopus or Kraken. Before, he could only feel its size due to the winds, but now.. he could see with his own eyes how big the Kraken really was.
'Crazy..'
The Kraken covered most of the floor, its tentacles spread across the specific rooms and destruction seemed to lie in its existence. However, that was not it's full sized body, Veritas saw tentacles below the gaping hole on the floor.
The tentacles below him were huge! The floor under him looked ruined and shattered, and the tentacles were at every corner of the room. Veritas tried to look for more yet could not find anything due to the destruction caused by the Kraken.
After scanning the craziness of the Kraken, Veritas moved on to look around the floor that he was in. He saw crooked floors, fallen walls, and a.. body.
It was a golden body yet it also seemed to be organic.
'This is the mysterious woman.'
Laying down the floor was a figure made of gold and flesh. It was as thin as a stick, and as pale as snow. Although it had a human body, its face was easily distinguishable from one.
'A damn demon..'
His suspicion was right, Veritas saw the thin figure laying down on the ground and scanned it even further. He investigated a couple of things..
First, He noticed that the figure was transmuted into gold, although not fully, most of its body was already turned. One noticeable fact was the demon's golden sharp fingers. This was the tool that the demon used to pierce his lower back.
Then, Veritas felt the lightweight body of the figure. He concluded that this was how the demon had lunged so fast at him and due to it being partially turned into gold, it could not attack simultaneously.
Satisfied with the assessment of the demon, Veritas walked away from the deceased body. He then went towards the gaping hole on the floor. Staring at it, Veritas was amazed by the sheer size of the thing!
'This damned Kraken caused this? Crazy! It's crazy!'
After further looking deeper below, he saw the destroyed bodies of the humans that once lived here. He saw their gaping wounds, and fatal injuries, yet they were all turned to gold nonetheless.
After a few moments have passed, Veritas assessed whether he should still descend down the tower or to recuperate back at the top.
'I'll keep going!'
With his curious mind, Veritas decided to descend even further. With the help of the Kraken, searching for the stairs would not be an issue at all.
However, before descending towards the depths, Veritas needed to rest. After expending much energy on the recent battle, Veritas was spent. It was only thanks to the Winds that put pressure on his wounds so that he didn't bleed out.
With his incomplete Soul, it would take a while for him to heal. Thus, he searched for things to eat, though he had nothing to drink yet, eating was still better than doing nothing.
One such thing that crossed his mind was the giant Octopus that lay dead close to him. Veritas patrolled the giant thing and searched for remnants of an organic flesh. However, with everything around him turned to gold except for only a few, his chances of seeing an organic flesh were low.
After circling the giant thing, Veritas' eyes suddenly sparkled, his glowing eye seemed to glow more than before.
'Yes! Yes! Yes!'
Veritas saw an unturned piece of flesh! His stomach grumbled even louder than before due to mesmerizing squid tentacle. To spot a small area that was unturned, Veritas felt quite proud of himself. But it was due to his new eye that he had even noticed this.
Still, eating the flesh raw potentially be dangerous, especially one coming from a Pure Soul or.. it could bring many benefits!
Veritas already knew how to solve the raw flesh problem, as Winds cause kinetic energy on impact, he only had to hit the flesh with very fast Winds, it could not be that hard!
Additionally, his wind would not blow the flesh away due to it being stuck with gold! Belonging to a Pure Soul could not cause it to erode too!
Thus, Veritas gazed upon his soul and activated Windsong, his mouth were filled with air and he started chanting some words.
"Gale! Gale! Gale!"
He used fast moving winds to theoretically cook the tentacle. He did not aim to cook the insides of the flesh but only the skin! As the inside flesh would take a huge amount of effort to breakthrough, peeling the skin would be much easier.
After a few moments of chanting and trying, Veritas could see the outer layer of skin to change! Formerly, the outer skin was deep blue but after high speed winds have hit it, the flesh now formed a brownish shade of crust.
Veritas confirmed that the outer skin was now cooked, he touched his finger and felt the sizzling crust. He then brought out his knife and started scraping the now cooked squid tentacle.
He stripped it into thin sheets of skin, it almost looked like a slim piece of jerky. Veritas was reluctant to try it out at first but his stomach had decided for him.
He very slowly placed the thin strip of skin inside his mouth and smoothly chewed on it. It was.. not too shabby at all, it tasted soft yet brittle at the same time. The texture is not too bad, and the taste was surprisingly normal. It tasted the same as octopus!
Still, it was better than nothing, especially with the situation, eating anything was better than not eating anything. Only if it was edible of course..
After sitting down and eating the pieces of thin skin, Veritas finally decided to descend further into the darkness. With Wind Blade in hand, never letting it vanish anymore due to his fear of an ambush, and an enhanced Wind Veil covering his body, Veritas made his way to the large gaping hole in the floor.
Veritas then jumped into the large hole, confident in his abilities to survive using Windsong to cushion his fall
Veritas looked around for a bit and went deeper into the darkness.