6 Chapter 6: Lovecraft Is The New Black

"I will decide what to do with the two soul fragments after I advance to middle rank and find myself a place to stay. It's too big of a decision to make on the fly." 

I said to myself as I flowed along a river of lava, searching for an entrance to the middle abyss. I did try to teleport to the pool of refinement, but I couldn't find its location with the scouter. when I tried all it showed was error. 

'Well it doesn't matter I'm about to arrive to the middle abyss soon, I will just ask the demons there.' 

After flying for who knows how long at Mach 3, I finally reached the end of the lava river. It was a giant hole in the ground where the lava fell to the middle abyss. 

Before I descend into the middle abyss, I better create myself a weapon. It was fine not having one in the Mummy world, since there was no one there who could hurt me. But the middle abyss is another story, the demons there have actual power. 

'Luckily I have the Halberd that Zi Yuan gave me as a reward for decimating Shangri-La.' 

[Heaven-Cleaving Halberd- a legendary weapon protected by Shangri-La, Capable of controlling water and amplifying the wielder's strength. Only one with a pure heart may wield this weapon.] 

Well good this weapon it's not useless, I will give it a little demonic makeover and add more powers to it. And that last part is just hilarious I will twist it a little. 

[Hell-Rising Halberd- Once a holy weapon that defended the weak but now a corrupt weapon that hungers for their souls. 

Elemental- Capable of controlling the four elements.

Amplify- Increase the wielder's strength and speed by 5.

Retrieval- return to its wielder when commanded. 

Soul Hunger- Can become stronger by feasting on souls. 

Traitor- When attacking anyone with a pure or holy soul the damage is double. 

Loyalty- Only recognize the demon Apophis as its wielder, if anyone else tries to wield it without permission, the halberd will try to eat their soul.] 

Here this halberd should be powerful enough until I become a demon lord. This is the most expensive item that I ever created, it cost me more than 100,000 souls. Almost all of them went toward the Soul Hunger attribute. 

"Well let's stop delaying and go to the middle abyss it's time to get stronger" 

I then pointed my new halberd toward the ground and widened the hole as l flowed down. After descending for more than 30 km I finally exited the tunnel and arrived at the middle abyss. 

At first glance, the middle abyss doesn't look that different from the upper abyss, the most obvious change I notice is the increase in gravity. Even with the demon's ability to adapt to the environment, it will still probably take a day to adjust. 

'Symbiont accelerate the adoption process to as fast as you can' 

I felt the symbiont moving around my muscles and bones speeding up the process, together with my high-speed regeneration. after less than 10 minutes, the symbiont stopped moving and I felt that my body got stronger as I moved around. 

'Maybe I should build a gravity machine later and with my high-speed regeneration I don't need a Senzu beans.' 

Well for now let's find a pool of refinement and evolve my bloodline first. I tried searching with my scouter again and it worked this time, the scouter was probably not strong enough to scan through the levels of the abyss. Good to know, now let's fly there it should only take me a few minutes at my current speed. I better not use my teleportation ability in front of all the demons there, it's one of my trump cards after all. 

(Shippu-Ken POV) 

"Finally, my journey to the top begins here." 

I said as I looked at the giant black structure that resembled a colosseum on the horizon. After a short 78 years after my birth, I am about to become a middle-rank demon. If I am lucky in about 150 more years, I will become a high-rank demon and be strong enough to kill my father. 

'You will pay for throwing me to the upper abyss, after calling me a mediocre offspring just because I was born without wings. You won't be saying much after I will cut your head off, and take your partner' 

 while I was busy picturing myself killing my dad and sleeping with my mom. I felt a presence flying toward the pool of refinement, at a speed faster than I ever imagined. 

As I looked at the fast-approaching demon, I noticed he was also watching me with a surprised expression. He then slowed down and stopped in midair in front of me, I put my guard up and tried to remember if I met this demon before. 

"The samurai, I didn't expect to meet an old friend on my way to the pool of refinement, it's probably fate bringing us together." Said the scale demon with an ominous smile on his face. 

'I don't know who he is or what this is about, but I can't let him ruin everything I worked for, not now when I am so close.' 

I reached for my katana and was about to draw her, I am confident about my combat skills, and from what I'm sensing both our magic powers are about the same. 'Impressive for a commoner, but it won't save you.' 

I looked at the same time as my opponent lowered his halberd, and the next moment the earth covered my feet and dragged me into the ground up to my stomach. I raised my katana to defend against the strike I knew was coming, but the speed was beyond anything I had ever seen, as my opponent disappeared and reappeared in front of me. I looked at the halberd in my chest and stared my killer in the eyes. 

"to think that I overcome such adversity and come so far, just to be killed by a commoner like AAAAAGGHH" I screamed as I felt my soul being sucked into the halberd. 

XXXXXXX 

"It's always nice meeting old friends, especially when they have gifts for you." I said as I took his katana and bow. 

The katana has some fire enchantment on it. But I am more interested in the bow, I still remember the arrows magically materializing when I first met him. I will upgrade them in the future now let's finish evolving my bloodline. 

I continued flying to the Colosseum and when I arrived there, the middle-rank demons that were waiting outside looked at me but didn't attack or stop me. They continue looking at me like some prey. I didn't pay them any mind and walked into the Colosseum, as I entered through the demon head gate I saw it in the middle of the arena, the pool of refinement. As I got closer to the pool I felt the suppression coming from the blood inside of it and I knew what it was, demon king's blood. 

'I am tempted to steal some of this blood, but I better not the demon overseeing this pool will probably kill me.' I thought for a second, and then stepped into the pool. 

I soaked myself in the purplish-red blood, I felt uncomfortable as the blood touched my skin. But I didn't feel uncomfortable for long, I felt fear moving along my spine to my brain. 

'God dammit just start the evolution process already I don't want to be in here.' luckily for me, I didn't have to wait long as I felt the force in the blood seep into my body and begin to drain my magic power to start evolving my bloodline. 

[External force trying to change the host's genes. The force might cause the host's bloodline to evolve, but the evolution might also fail. Should the system influence the process?] 

'Yes take control of the process and tell me all the bloodlines I can evolve to.' after I gave my command, I felt the consumption of my magic power slowed, and I stopped feeling afraid. 

[there are a total of ten types of recessive demon bloodlines in the host. Six of them are succubus bloodline, shadow demon bloodline, gorgon bloodline, illusion demon bloodline, hydra bloodline. The other three dominant bloodlines are the snake demon bloodline, flame demon bloodline, marilith demon bloodline. Please select a bloodline as the direction of evolution.] 

Considering my appearance and natural abilities, I wasn't surprised by all the snake-related bloodlines. What did surprise me was that half of my bloodline is from succubus, if their bloodline weren't usually a recessive one, I am sure that the abyss would be swarming with them. 'System what is the most powerful bloodline?' 

[The hydra bloodline is the most powerful with many abilities. after scanning this bloodline deeper, the system is detecting a more powerful ancestor of yours in the Hydra bloodline, but the generational gap is too big to evolve into this bloodline.] 

I don't care if I will turn into a slug after this transformation. I can always change my looks through the system, what I care about is power. 'System can you use my souls to evolve me into this ancestor's bloodline?' 

[Affirmative, the system can use high-quality souls to evolve you in this direction. But to make sure that the process will be successful, many high-quality souls will be consumed.] 

'The last thing that concerns me is my souls after my harvest, System start the evolution process.' After he finished speaking, Apophis felt the force in the blood enter his body and start to change him from his external appearance to his genes. He looked at his chest and saw the teeth-like bones that he now had from his neck to his groin. When he looked into his stomach, he saw purple tentacles that he could control to come out. When Apophis was in shock about these changes, he suddenly felt angry, disgusted, malicious stares all around him wanting to kill him, after a few seconds the stares he felt disappeared. 

The demon blood force then entered his brain and started to build his new magic circuits, when the circuit was completed, and the transformation was finished. Apophis felt smarter and he also felt he could exit his brain, a strong hunger for something, but he didn't know for what. it was all new and strange to him. 

'I can't wait to test my new powers luckily for me, there are a few eager volunteers outside the Colosseum.' I exited the pool of refinement and finally got a good look at myself. I grew to three meters tall and was slender for my height. I have a dragon-shaped head with red eyes and two sets of horns that were reaching for the sky. I lost most of my scales and instead had black-red skin, with small tentacles around my arms and across my body, with a big mouth-like hole in my upper body. My tail became slenderer, and my wingspan increased to nine meters. I looked like a Lovecraftian monster now with my tentacles coming out of my stomach I needed some time to get used to my new body but I didn't hate it as I felt my new powers. 'System show me my status' 

[Name: Apophis

Race: Demon 

Bloodline: at least three different kinds 

Demon True Name: Abraxas Dagon Grigori Moloch Amon... Morgoth Apophis 

Form: Adult Dracon 

Hierarchy: middle middle-rank demon 

Attribute: Dark, Life, Fire, Psionic. 

Strength: 278 

Speed: 526 

Magic: 600 

Vitality: 500 

Loaded Materials: Venom claws, Scaly wings, Symbiont, The Core of The Red Dragon Longwei. 

Skills: Stealth, Progenitor, Infected Wound, Greedy Ancestor, Bloodline Corruption, Teleportation, Mind Control, Shapeshifting, High-Speed Regeneration, False Immortality. 

Talent Abilities: Soul Peer, Demon Blood, Soul Devouring Addiction, Poison, Shedding, Psychic Vampire Physiology, Drine Life, Pyrokinesis, Mind Blast, Dark Aura.

Items: Curse dagger of Apophis, Horadric cube, Scouter, Hell-Rising Halberd. 

Number of Souls in Possession: 3,149,475 low-quality souls, 741 high-quality souls,2 highest-quality soul fragments] 

[Psychic Vampire Physiology- The Dracon species have the innate ability to feast on other beings emotions and increase their power. Due to this Physiology, the host must feed constantly, but you possess the ability to acquire more psychic abilities the more you feast.] 

[Drine Life- You can absorb the life force of the targets in your vicinity and enhance yourself temporarily. Extended drain may result in permanent effects or death.] 

[Pyrokinesis- You can freely generate, shape, and manipulate fire with your mind. The more magic you put into it the more powerful your attack becomes.] 

[Mind Blast- Generate a great amount of psychic energy into a pulse and damage the brains of the beings in your vicinity. The range and power of this attack is dependent on the amount of your magic.] 

[Dark Aura- Surround yourself with shadows and darkness for defensive and offensive purposes. The aura also enhances your physical abilities.] 

"So, this is the reason why I am so hungry, well let's start with the five snacks in front of me." I spoke, as I was exiting the Colosseum and looking at the five middle-rank demons outside. 

When I stepped outside the Colosseum limits the three insects and two wing demons surrounded me from the front and sides, and with the Colosseum barrier behind me, I was trapped. Then the insect that looked bigger than the rest looked at me and was about to speak when I interrupted him. "I don't like wasting my time with cannon fodder, can you just attack me already." 

The bug roared and charged at me with an angry expression, and the two other bugs followed him. At the same time, the two other wing demons stayed in the air and watched me. With a flap of my wings, I arrived at the middle of the two groups and used mind blast. 

I felt my magic rush to my brain and start turning into a giant compressed ball of psychic energy, I kept increasing the attack until I put a quarter of my magic into it. Then I released it and watched as the psychic waves spread from me to all five demons. All the demons immediately held their heads and started screaming. after ten seconds under my psychic attack, the first demon died as he stopped screaming and had a lifeless look in his eyes as he stood there. After another few seconds, the other demon's minds also broked and the winged ones fell to the ground. 

The only barely alive survivor was the big insect demon, I stopped my attack and walked to him. I could feel his fear more clearly now that I was close to him and it made me, so hungry that I could barely control myself. I stood near his head, as my stomach opened and my purple tentacles came out and moved toward his brain. The demon had a horrified look, as the tentacles got inside his head and he started to scream and squirm uncontrollably. I didn't care about him as I felt a rush of adrenaline as my tentacles drained his brain of all this energy until it stopped functioning. 

I looked intoxicated as I searched for more demons nearby. "I have to drink at least ten more demons not a hundred, yes that's a good start."