34 Suspicions

Stanis closed his eyes as he moved his hands around in the Tree's shadow. The first thing that came to mind was the flexibility of his control in contrast to before. The way he controlled the darkness was by imagining it as a liquid, and by moving around the walls of its exterior, allowing the darkness to flow into the area he allowed it to. All this time, he had been dealing with purely straight walls, meaning he had to imagine multiple in his head to create a curved shape. But this was no longer the case as he could feel the walls bending under his will, the flexibility far beyond what it was prior.

The next thing that came to mind took a bit longer, about a minute of playing around for him to realise. The shadow of the tree, that he was using, was slightly darker than the shadows around it, almost as if it was thicker. He could feel a small increase in the graininess of the darkness, which made him believe that his trait was actually powering the shadow up.

He then manipulated the veils of darkness around his arms, this darkness being off a higher quality as it was from the Temple. In fact, Stanis couldn't even see through it despite his night vision.

He closed his eyes as he focused on the texture of the darkness, before exhaling a deep sigh seconds later. The graininess of his veils hadn't increased at all, or if they had, he couldn't notice it whatsoever. Still, this was fine as the main thing he was interested in wasn't his veils of darkness but rather whether he could kill anything with his powers. His mission from the Zelaro was to claim 20 lives with his darkness.

After reapplying the veils across his arms, Stanis sneaked out of the hidden area he had found, before searching the Forest for any small game. A few minutes later he was back in his hidden area, only now with an unconscious hare within his arms.

He softly placed down the hare, almost as if he was scared that it would wake up, before moving the shadows towards the Hare. Its soft breathing wasn't interrupted as a cloud of darkness covered it, not even as the cloud of darkness entered its orifices.

Now feeling despondent, Stanis was almost out of hope until he remembered the veils he had re-attached to his arms. His control got better as he pulled them off within a short second, before once again willing them to cover the hare's body.

This time the hare was affected, and quite violently at that as it began spluttering in its breath, unable to breathe as the midnight's veils smothered its body. The soft breathing transformed into raspy cries, which quickly died within seconds as all that was left was a motionless body.

Not willing to get his spirits too high, Stanis proceeded to stab the Hare, before feeling a moment of delight as the corpse lay dead.

He now knew that only his veils could cause damage, but was stuck at a crossroad as he realised only his veils could completely hide his monstrous left arm…

Eventually coming to a decision, Stanis decided he would choose the best of both as he motioned the veils back across his arms, before willing them off again.

It took quite a bit of practice, about an hour or so, before he could shoot the veils off fast enough to cause surprise to an enemy, and more importantly also smother them before they had the time to react. Luckily his regeneration rate of 7 mana per hour had been far more than enough to sustain his practice as he still had a full tank. Therefore, he decided to practise his other active trait.

<Activate Transformation>

He leaned back on a tree as he thought this, his body quickly collapsing to the ground as his senses shut down. All he could feel was the mana flowing inside of him.

[What part of your body do you wish to transform?]

Having previously realised that he didn't want to become anymore the monster that he already was, Stanis willed the System to only upgrade his current left arm. To his luck, it allowed him to do so as he felt a drain inside of himself, his mana quickly being set into action as his left arm began to transform.

A few seconds later the ordeal was done and Stanis was back on his feet as he examined his upgraded arm. In all fairness, it was almost identical to what it was like before as it was still slightly longer and thicker than his right arm, with menacing red claws coming off the fingers and a thick, dark-orange shield-like skin over the whole thing. The only change he could find after minutes of looking and squeezing was that the dark-orange skin was thicker than before, albeit only by a bit.

Luckily, he already had success in the darkness manipulation trait and was thus largely unbothered by the lack of improvement in the transformation. It was as he was about to re-veil his arms that he felt a deep sense of danger behind him.

Taking a deep breath in, he slowly rotated his body, his heartbeat thundering louder and louder every second, only to come face to face with the glint of an arrow…

Merely two metres away from him stood a girl his height wearing light, leather armour. She had an athletic figure with dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. But all of this skipped his mind as his whole focus was on the arrow she had nocked, her fingers edging towards the end of the string.

His whole body tensed as he understood his position, adrenaline coursing through his blood as he went into fight-or-flight mode. Worse still was the fact that he felt an illogical pressure on him, one that told him to not fight but rather run…

"What are you?"

Her voice was soft but her tone sharp, her brow crossed as she stared at him like a predator.

It took one terrifying moment for him to realise that his left arm was still out, which was clearly what she was referring to despite her eyes set straight towards his face. She was watching him, scrutinizing his reaction with intensity.

"I'm Human…" responded Stanis, half-hoping for a smile that never came. Instead, her brow further tightened and the tension in the air only seemed to thicken.

"Why then is your arm of a monster's?" asked the blonde, her voice now in a very threatening tone.

"A skill. Merely a skill".

Her glare stayed as scrutinizing as ever, Stanis only tensing his body as he stood ready to respond. But to his surprise, and half to hers, she lowered her bow.

"It better be. For your own good…"

She was gone as fast as she had come. Stanis would have even doubted his memory was it not for the cold-sweat dribbling down his back as he watched her ethereally flow through the Forest, her pace fast and accompanied by a lack of sound.

All he could think off was her last statement as he stood standing, now fully aware of how cold and hot his body felt at the same time. In fear of the lady coming back, Stanis quickly recast the veils across his arms before running towards the Village.

It was his luck that she didn't know the existences of allegiances, as one question about that would have given his whole game away. Only ten minutes later and soaked in sweat did he feel himself calm down, now inside the tent for newcomers.

The Woman had an awful aura around her, one that instinctively made him feel inferior. He was certain that she was someone from this Village, worse still a big shot with how strong he guessed her to be. Perhaps he was playing with fire by staying here, but he desperately wanted to level up and a Village as strong as this one was definitely hard to come by.

She had no way to disprove his Humanity because, well, he was a Human. But this was also the Apocalypse, the only proof she needed was her own dominating strength over his to kill him. He hoped that the number of people here would stop her, but felt suffocated nevertheless as he remembered the insanity of the survivors here, especially within the strong ones…

Luckily his exhaustion from the day quickly caught up to him, allowing him to fall asleep within seconds of lying down. Even luckier was the fact that he was still alive when he woke up…

The sun was peeking across the horizon as he woke up and so he walked over to the Supply Centre. He managed to salvage a better sword than the one he already had, one which was slim and as long as one-and-a-half forearms. It gleamed with bloodlust, the cold steel comforting him with a sense of power.

He chose not to take a spear due to the fact that he was to be fighting in the Caves today, which would greatly limit the effectiveness of a spear. He would have taken a shield if he could have, but there were none left in stock for the rest of the week. However he did find a clean, thick Cuirass which would provide decent defence, alongside a few other leather pieces such as leg-guards.

After a bit of practice in the Forest, especially with his new sword and magic, Stanis returned back to the Village. In the centre was a crowd of people waiting for Alyona, each and every one of them eager for battle. He quickly found Jayesh, Aaliyah and Scowly within the crowd, who he joined up with.

Pleasantries exchanged, they only had to wait a few moments till Alyona revealed herself to the crowd.

Stanis was once again half-listening, half day-dreaming as he listened to her speech: the important thing being that each group should be around 5 men large since any more would be dangerous in the tunnels. This was 4 random people and at least 1 person who knew what the Mountain tunnels were like, to which Stanis's group was a bit stuck for as they began searching for Kei or Callum within the crowd.

It was to their luck and joy that another girl from the Village joined them. She had dirty blonde hair, bright blue eyes and had an athletic figure. She also held an awfully scrutinizing glare towards Stanis…

It seemed his luck couldn't get any better!