Bad Luck Barry
A hundred of kilometers away, a worn out Iso was dashing on top of trees in an unknown forest heading for the city. Bleeding and eyes already half-closed he have already used most of his mana. The last move he made to escape, The Millennium Mirror Moves, made hundreds of clones out of himself and they had almost half of his original power. Usually, he would only use this as a finishing move to defeat foes stronger than him but knowing that the Gatekeeper can revive himself even when his body was diced, he used it as a trick to escape instead. He might have overwhelmed the Gatekeeper with that skill, but he wasn't confident to defeat a seemingly new paragon who had rose into power in a mana-deficient world.
One of the reasons why Iso chose the forest path was to mask his mana with the growing mana in the world. For some reason the undisturbed forests also emanated mana now. He was also busy absorbing mana while hopping over the trees only using his body strength so as not to alert the Gatekeeper who might be on his tail. At first, he was relieved that an hour has passed, and no one was looking for him, but he realized maybe because he has become weak already, his muscles spasmed at times and he was panting every now and then.
Iso drank water from streams between searching for mana-producing creatures in the forests. Some of these creatures might be century-old animals like deer, eagles, snakes and monkeys but it wasn't enough. He felt in his bones that with all the mana he absorbed after hunting these old creatures he his mana levels hasn't grown beyond 1/100th of his full power. Now, with mana filling up the earth he might be the one hunted as a mana source if he remained weak. Should he remain fearful and stay at the forest until he regained even just a quarter of his power? Or was it better to risk it to go to the city and hunt down other beings who are being revived by mana rain?
The former proud Lord Iso who is now hiding like a scared cat was already 2 weeks in his isolation in the forest. He has grown impatient as he has plundered all of the absorbable mana from the forest creatures and yet he hasn't gotten beyond 2% of his normal power. He had to leave the forest to be able to absorb mana as he didn't have the skill to absorb mana from plants. That was when he felt it, a ripple of a weak mana wave from the closest city! It was what he was waiting for a weak being that has mana reserves! Due to his excitement he almost flew to the city until he realized he might be tracked by the Gatekeeper. So, he chose to keep on leaping from treetops instead as he happily headed to his next hunt.
He arrived at a river park filled with well-mowed grass and trees. There wasn't any person since it was 4 in the morning. His shining cat eyes lighted up the night as he stealthily hopped from one tree to the next hoping to find the newly recovered mana creature. To his dismay he found the newly revived creature, but it has been killed with not a single whiff of mana in its body. He discovered it was a young mana beast which looked like a triceratops that has just hatched from an egg. However, someone has hunted it for its mana just like him. Scared realizing that the hunter was still around Iso returned to the edge of the forest waiting for the next mana ripple after the next mana rain.
It was days before rain drenched the city again and just like last time there were invisible whirlpools sucking the mana out of the rain. He wanted to hunt down these recovering beings, but he couldn't risk it since the Gatekeeper might show up again. He would be hunting weaker beings like mana beasts to slowly build up his power. It might be a long wait, but it could pay off in the long run. He didn't forget to absorb mana from the rain but at less quantities than before afraid another human paragon would find him.
Another week has passed, and he had stacked up 8% of his total mana capacity. He frowned that it has been weeks he had been weak, but it was better since the past days he could detect lives of newly revived monster lords being snuffed out by human paragons hundreds of miles away. Iso knew he couldn't survive a minute if he met another human paragon. They seem to have great hatred for non-humans, a trait that wasn't around during the last millennium. Has the humans totally ruled the planet, he wondered?
Every now and then Iso would scout the city during the night using his shadow arts to avoid detection from human paragons. He was continuously looking for mana beasts who might be hiding in the large city where people are indifferent of the invisible mana beings. Some nights, he could absorb ghouls and spirits to increase his strength but most of the times he used this as bait to lure mana beings who devoured souls. From a proud monster lord, Iso had relearned to be stealthy and alert all the time which made him remember of his younger years before he attained his monster lord status more than a millennium ago. More of a scavenger than a hunter, his initial skills revolved around mimicry, stealth and speed. Using small-scale illusions, Iso could trick other beings and steal their prey or assassinate stronger rivals. When he wasn't a monster lord, he preferred stealing but when he achieved the rank which all mana beasts wanted he could simply destroy his enemies.
He was on his 4th hunted beast at this night when he was reminiscing of his past. He had already surpassed the 9% mark of his mana capacity. Another 1% and he could use short-range teleportation already. Getting impatient again, he drifted to another section of the city where he felt weak mana pulses. He knew it wasn't human since he sensed chaos, fire and ice elements all in one being. Humans can't handle chaos elements unless they were paragons, but paragons normally hid their chaos element skills as a reserve since it was damaging to the environment. The blend of ice and fire elements was also unlikely to be found in a human since these were opposite essences, it is usually found in parasitic mana beasts which normally doesn't have consciousness.
However, when Iso arrived at an empty parking lot to search for the triple-element mana beast, he found a pair of burning blue eyes with red pupils staring straight at him. That being smirked while staring at him, then continued walking at the same direction passing by the monster lord.
"Why isn't it afraid of me? Why am I afraid of him?" pondered Iso as he tilted his head looking at the silhouette of the human formed who carelessly walked past him. He realized he was invisible and yet that guy saw him. What's strange was that the person was carrying two bags of groceries and wearing a hoodie with the local high school logo imprinted on it. Angered and impatient, Iso decided to hunt down this human-formed mana beast as he leapt in the air to swipe at this being with his mana-sharpened claws.
In a split of second just as his claws arrived at the head of his target, it disappeared. Then a rain of metal fists welcomed him instead, throwing Iso a few feet to the ground.
"I might seem weak, but I can fight." The human with metal fists mumbled to himself as he dropped the groceries he carried and continued raining jabs on Iso even though the monster lord was meters away. Iso knew this was no human as its upper limbs elongated and its punches could hurt even at a distance. The fast jabs producing sound waves caused the monster lord much annoyance as he has been used in staying low-key for weeks. Parked cars got damaged, windows got broken, alarms went off, but the human-formed mana beast continued to hound Iso with its elongated fists and boxing skills. After a few seconds of being overwhelmed, Iso counter attacked. Using swift martial skills and basic illusions he could land critical hits at his enemy which became a human punching bag at no time. Just as Iso was about to overcome his opponent it started to blow fireballs at him. Not just round fireballs that moved in a line, these fireballs seemed like machine gun projectiles that curved through the air. With quick movement skills Iso dodged a great number of them but still got hit once in a while.
Iso then decided to move faster and engage in close combat while evading the fireballs in the process. What Iso didn't know was that both of them has been leaping from one place to another while endlessly attacking each other. The monster lord was even more surprised when every time he hit the human-formed mana beast, his claws and limbs would start to get frozen. He would then have to use his mana to unfreeze his limbs.
"Still don't know when to give up?" the human in the hoodie mocked him as it launched a round-house kick to a half-frozen Iso. The kick was effective and threw Iso at a distance but it also removes the freeze effect of his other attack.
Iso backflipped and landed on the ground immediately counterattacking with a pounce of his illusion while his real body side stepped and launched a mana-fueled range attack to the human. The attack connected and fours slashes appeared at the hoodie which now has been deformed. Underneath however the tattered clothes were a well-ripped body gleaming as if it was metal and the smirk from its face just proved that Iso's last attack wasn't effective at all.
Getting enraged, Iso unleashed more mana attacks blasting the human at different angles for a number of times. But within a second, the human-formed mana beast would seemingly teleport right next to him before launching a counterattack which is either a punch, kick or an elemental attack.
Strangely with all the attacks, none of them got injured but their clothes showed the battle they are experiencing. Iso had his already broken armor further disfigured while the human had his hoodie and pants in tatters. Both of their attacks just seemed to weaken through time and this annoyed both of them as it seemed they were a bad match to begin with.
Then out of the blue a thing hit Iso's head which made him lose balance and fell on his back. Shocked to have a brick thrown at him and worse realizing a brick was strong enough to knock him down he prepared to get up. Unexpectedly, a thousand new bricks appeared out of thin air and drowned Iso's body in it. Only the monster lord's head was not covered by these bricks.
"I can't believe gold bars are your weakness!" the human exclaimed which had a surprised expression in its face. Th human walked over the pile of gold bars, crouched down and stared straight at Iso.
"Give me your soul, serve me for 500 years and I'll let you live." The confident human said. He was actually half-joking as he remembered stories in anime and light novels where the protagonist would usually have a supportive battle beast at his side.
Iso realizing that his dwindling mana level was less than 1% even if he escaped from this human, he would slowly lose his consciousness. Iso was forced to surrender. He quickly lowered the defenses of his mental realm and awaited his attacker to place a seal in his soul. It took minutes for the seal to form as it was the human's first time to actual make a soul transaction but the monster lord didn't know that. Once the contract was sealed, Iso was basically a soul slave of the human for 500 years.
"Okay, you can go now." John Dalton said as he began picking up the gold bars and it disappeared one bar at a time. He has just learned how to open his storage space in this world and he unknowingly triggered it while fighting causing the gold bars to fall off randomly.
Shocked and weirded out by this human, Iso was still lying down while staring at the teenager. The human who defeated me isn't even a grown man? He was watching John tumbling over a rolling canned good as he was busy picking up some scattered gold bars. Usually powerful beings were abusive to their soul slaves as they usually used slaves as meat shields during battles. But this human seemed to be different. Maybe he won't need to kill this human after all if he survives after 500 years.
Conscious that a cat-humanoid was still lying down staring at him John tried to lessen the awkwardness between them.
"It's strange, why are these gold bars affecting you?" John inquired while now picking up the bags of groceries he dropped a while ago. He decided to put these in his storage space as well.
"Those bars aren't just ordinary gold, they could seal shadow elements as well." Iso replied while trying to stand as his aching body betrays him. Still wobbly standing up with only one leg the human actually helped him up unknowingly sending large amounts of mana to the monster lord. Iso thought the human was being kind to him softened his facial expression and said, "Thank you for your help, I was wondering if I could go now." Iso was still wary despite the human's act of kindness since just a few minutes ago it was busy pummeling him with metal fists, fire and ice attacks.
"Sure, no problem. I just live five blocks to that direction." John pointing at a street. "It's strange, we could feel each other with our minds right? So you know where to find me." With all the gold bars and groceries gone to his storage space, John wanted to continue his conversation with his new cat ally.
John stared at his wristwatch "Oh, I've got to go now. It's almost curfew and my mom would be pissed." As he started running back home.
Iso was left standing in the empty parking lot all alone. What kept him from moving was that he realized that his mana supply was at a 100%, that means he's a fully empowered monster lord again.
Just as Iso was planning to wreak havoc again a mental message arrived. "Anyway, I still haven't given you a name. From now on your name is Barry. My first rule is you can't harm any human beings anymore." And just like that the fully revived monster lord was leashed to never harm another human being again.