21 A fleeting shadow.
*Weng Weng*
When Marcus activated the skill, the air around him distorted and a blanket of dark energy began to emanate from his body giving him a truly sinister aspect.
...
{The skill [Fear aura] has been successfully activated}.
...
{All living beings with hostile intentions within a 20m(65.6ft) radius of the user suffer the effect of fear}.
...
{Under the effect of fear, the stats of all living creatures at rank 2 decreases by 20%. The stats of living creatures in rank 3 decreases by 10%}.
...
{As long as the skill is activated, the user's MP will be continuously drained}.
...
'Wow... If I had known that the effects were so good, I would have activated the skill at the beginning of the battle. I feel like an idiot for not trying it earlier.'
[Fear aura] was one of the skills Marcus gained from evolving into a Semi-lich Warrior. But since he never had the chance to test it, he didn't know what effects the skill had until now. And apparently, the effect of the skill was better than he expected.
Under the effects of fear, the Arsenis ants immediately began to instinctively and uncontrollably recoil and tremble. Even the colossal Lead Ant over 2.5 meters(8.2ft) tall seemed to be frightened.
"KIIIIIIEEEH!"
The Lead Ant was scared because of fear, so it began shouting orders to the rest of the swarm to mobilize.
Although the effect of the fear was strong, it seemed that the authority of the leader was much more powerful, so quickly the ants stopped retreating and charged towards Marcus.
[HP: 329/666]
[MP: 584/2232]
'I don't have too much Mp left. So I'd better hurry up and get this over with for good. Shadowy claws, Negative edge.'
Shadows emerged from Marcus' palms and soon spread to cover his forearms, transforming the fingers of his hands into dark sharp claws more than 10 centimeters(4 inches) long that emitted a purple glow.
*Bam, whoosh!*
Marcus stomped the ground so hard that he created a cloud of dust and like a gale ran headlong into the swarm of Arsenis ants.
*Slash Shik Slash Shik!*
Under the effects of the Buff, Marcus' speed had already far exceeded the limits of a human, and thanks to the aura of fear, the Arsenis ants became much weaker making the slashes and stabs from his claws even more effective.
*Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*
Seeing this, the Lead Ant was not going to stand idly by and resumed its bombardment. But Marcus was so fast that the energy waves couldn't hit him and only ended up cratering the ground, shattering dozens of Arsenis ants in the process.
Marcus got through the rest of the swarm without much difficulty and in a matter of seconds was only a few steps away from the Lead Ant. Although he could annihilate the swarm easily, he was running low on mana so he had to defeat the leader while he still had the advantage.
'Hello again, ready for round two?'
"KIIIIIIEEEH!"
*Weng Weng*
The colossal ant shrieked and opened its massive jaws causing ripples of energy to begin to form around it.
'Oh no, don't even think about it!'
But before the Lead Ant could fire, Marcus' dark claws grabbed the massive jaws and ripped them off their owner's body.
"KIIIIIIEEEH!"
The Lead Ant shrieked in pain begging for help from its minions as huge amounts of yellow fluid poured out of its wounds. But before they could even do anything, Marcus' left claw was thrust into the ant's grotesque mouth.
'You know, I was planning to say something epic when it's going to kill you. But whatever, I can't talk anyway. Energy missile!'
*BANG!*
The Lead Ant's head exploded and both its internal fluid and yellow brains stained jungle soil. The corpse of the now decapitated Lead Ant staggered and finally fell to the ground with a thud.
Seeing their leader brutally murdered, the rest of the swarm did not wait for a second longer and began to retreat deep into the sea of trees.
Before long, all that was left of the great battle was an area littered with ant corpses, craters more than two meters deep, and the trees that had been burned or felled.
....
{You earned 250,320 xp}
...
{You leveled up}
{You leveled up}
...
{You gained 68 stat points}
...
'Just that?! I went through this whole mess and I didn't even get a title?!... Sigh...Anyway, I guess I'll collect the ant cores and then find a shelter where I can get my mana back.'Marcus thought as he wiped off the ant remains that were left on his body. 'Ugh, I need to take a shower immediately.'
****
In a cavern deep in the jungle, there was a crystal clear freshwater pond teeming with small fish, amphibians, aquatic plants, and all sorts of fluorescent mosses.
From the depths of the pond emerged a skeletal figure and on the left side of its chest was a small sphere of sky-blue energy.
'Haaa...My first shower in months. Although this feels a bit strange considering the fact that I'm a skeleton.'
Naturally, this skeletal figure was Marcus.
It had been almost three months since he escaped from the floating island and arrived in the jungle. In that time he had been trudging through the jungle day and night almost without rest until he finally found this little pond to wash up a bit.
Marcus stepped off the pond and approached one of the walls of the cave. He stood up imitating the karate processes he had seen in the movies, closed his fist, and punched the rock wall with all his might.
*Baam! Crack!*
'Ouch, sh*t!'
But despite the great noise generated by the blow, the cave wall suffered no damage and on the contrary, Marcus broke his hand. But immediately necrotic energy began to flow through his fist causing all the cracks in it to begin to heal and soon disappear as if they had never existed.
================================
Name: Marcus Edevane
Titles:[Undead Killer][Adversity Overcomer]
[Arachnid Genocider].
Race: Undead
Species: Semi-lich Warrior.
Rank: 3
Level: 31 (32,156/225,000 exp)
================================
HP: 1001/1001
MP: 3557/3714
Strength: 94 Stamina: max
Defense: 77 Intelligence: 371
Vitality: 100 Wisdom: 78
Agility: 96
Stats points: 30
================================
Skills:
{[Corpse body][Fear aura lv:5]
[Dark resistance lv:3][Evil resistance lv:4]
[Energy Sense lv:5][Melee Combat lv:4]
[Marksmanship lv:4][Sword Technique lv:5]
[Mace Technique lv:4][Acrobatics lv:7]
[Energy Magic lv:2][Necromancy lv:2]
[Darkness Magic lv:2][Analysis lv:4]
[Inventory lv:4][Dark Vision lv:9]
[Automatic MP recovery lv:3]}
Weaknesses:
{[Blunt damage lv:6][Solar/Light damage lv:9]
[Fire Damage lv:7][Spiritual Damage lv:9]
[Sacred Damage lv: Max]}
================================
'I guess I still can't destroy rock walls without using my spells... I should have increased my defense more?' He thought while checking his status.
After the attack caused by the Arsenis ants, Marcus was able to advance through the jungle at a steady pace, although he suffered some difficulties.
One of the main causes was the continuous nightly assaults by the Arsenis ants, which continued for a couple more weeks until he finally made it out of their territory.
In those cases Marcus had managed to kill the swarm leaders first, causing the rest to retreat until the next night. After that things were a bit calmer.
At night Marcus would make use of his [Fear aura] to keep most of the high-level predators away and during the day he would use his remaining equipment to take on the rest of the daytime animals. Of course, he also had his complications.
During all his battles he had suffered multiple wounds, fractures and his limbs were broken a dozen times which slowed his progress on multiple occasions. In addition, after three months of continuous battles, all the equipment from the floating island had been destroyed.
This fact added to the negative effects caused by the solar energy caused Marcus to be unable to hunt the daytime predators and as the amount of XP required was much higher now, his level had not changed much.
Also, many of the night monsters were too powerful for him, so hunting them was out of the question.
The good news was that, after so many fights, many of his skills had leveled up and he was now stronger than an average rank 3 monster.
Also, once Marcus reached level 30 the amount of stat points he received doubled, making him able to increase his strength to the point where he could destroy trees and large rocks with his bare hands. Well, as long as he used his boosting spells.
'HUh?'
At that moment, a strange tingle ran through Marcus' entire body.
' Someone is killing my soldiers?!'
...
{The user has defeated a [Nargor Parasite Worm] for the first time, 650 additional experience points will be awarded}.
...
{You gained 6501 xp}
...
Hearing the system notification, Marcus summoned a dark sword along with a shadow shield and quickly made his way to the entrance of the cave. When he arrived, he found 4 skeletons equipped with dark weapons and armor, all of which had some broken bones.
The ground at the entrance of the cave was covered with bones, broken weapons and in the middle of the four skeleton soldiers was a naked creature whose body looked just like a normal human being but was covered entirely with brown scales and its neck branched into multiple brown worms of varying sizes, the largest ones were as wide as a human leg.
================================
Race: Monstrosity
Species: Naragor parasitic worm. (Human)
Rank: 3
Level: 23
================================
HP: 0/1001
MP: 620/681
Strength: 60 Stamina: 62
Defense: 53 Intelligence: 68
Vitality: 100 Wisdom: 7
Agility: 105
================================
Skills:
{[Parasitism lv: Max][Incubate lv:8]
[Body control lv:5][Superior touch lv: Max]
[Venom secretion lv:4][Regeneration lv:2]
[Poison resistance lv:6]}
Weaknesses:
{[Acid damage lv:7][Fire damage lv:6]}
================================
'Out of my 10 skeleton soldiers 6 were destroyed and the rest seem to be almost out of combat... But, for having faced a monster two ranks higher than them, the result was pretty good.'
Marcus looked down at the pile of bones that soon turned to black smoke and then the skeleton soldiers still standing also collapsed, scattering into the air.
A few days ago Marcus' INT had exceeded 300 points, so his mana increased to the level of a mage of the third rehi realm. Because of this, he was now able to use level 3 necromancy spells with which he could summon multiple types of undead such as zombies or skeleton soldiers.
Although individually the attack power of the skeleton soldiers wasn't great, one couldn't deny the fact that if summoned in groups the skeleton soldiers became a fighting force to be reckoned with.
In addition, the summoner could decide what weaponry the summoned skeleton would have, which made each undead in the group have its own role in the battle and this certainly increased their combat potential.
But since they were too weak for a full-scale fight anyway, Marcus only used them as bodyguards when he took refuge to recover.
'Now that I think about it, where does the equipment of the summoned soldiers come from...? Well, I'll think about that later, but more importantly...'
Marcus turned his attention to the parasitic worm lying dead mere inches from him, he cut into the creature's abdomen and began to poke around inside its innards.
================================
Name: Rehi Crystal [Naragor parasitic worm].
Grade: 1.6
================================
Durability: 50/50
Energy: 620 /681
Description: A Rehi crystal
from a [Naragor Parasitic Worm].
Contains energy and poisonous energy.
================================
After searching for several minutes, Marcus pulled out a pile of worm eggs along with a purple crystal the size of a human heart. Although he was pleased with the core, he was more fascinated by the parasite itself.
From what Marcus could gather from its biology, the Naragor parasitic worm seemed to have some sort of skill that allowed it to alter the structure of the animals it infects.
In its developmental stage, the parasitic worm would choose a host and slowly change it into an incubator to reproduce. But more important was the host this parasite was using.
'This guy was a human before he was infected, which means there could be some kind of human settlement not too far from here!'
After scouring the jungle for three months, Marcus was beginning to despair at not being able to find any trace of advanced civilization. But now he could at least find a clue that would lead him to a settlement.
Even though he was an undead considered the natural enemy of the living, Marcus still wanted to find some town or place where he could resupply himself with resources and get some information even if it meant running the risk.
Once he finished putting his things away Marcus looked up at the jungle sky which was beginning to light up with reddish tones. It wouldn't be long before dawn.
'Well, I'd better get going, with any luck I can make it to some town just by nightfall.'
"Hiiisss."
But before he could even move, Marcus saw a large shadow out of the corner of his eye sockets and a second later, everything went dark
