Chapter 2 - When All Want You Dead… Become Perfectly Prepared

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

[System]

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…

(First POV:)

Finally taking my first steps, I slowly walked around the cave. It wasn't big by any means but I could stretch myself to my maximum and still barely touch the ceiling.

Walking around on my wings was an annoying experience. My body had to adjust from humanoid to wyvern.

I would only need a bit of a walk and run with my new body to re-adjust my coordination and motor skills.

The only thing I couldn't train in the cave was flight, yet I wasn't ready. The beings outside this cave would kill me on first contact.

There was a 98% chance that the first humans I would meet would try to kill me.

If I were in a medieval world, I would be attacked. If I were in the modern day, I would be filmed and then attacked. And if I were in a futuristic world, I would be studied, dissected, and stored for later.

Only when I was perfectly prepared would I leave. Going over my skills, I tried to make use of both gravity and lightning manipulation with minimal success and extreme effort.

[Origin Darkness Manipulation] was different. The darkness in the cave moved with minimal mana intake.

The darkness didn't need to be in contact with me, but I didn't know the full range. As far as I know, the darkness could be controlled by me from as far as ten meters.

I didn't try to go further, but instead of purely manipulating the darkness to move, I tried to make abilities out of it.

I noticed that, unlike Monster Zero, I didn't have all the abilities it did. Would I gain them over time? Or would I have to learn them myself?

The darkness was fun to mess with, as I could make it dark enough that not even I could see through it or make it completely invisible.

The ability I had seemed to hold some concept of darkness that made the whole "you can't see" truly something you can't see.

In a quick move, I took some darkness, wrapped it around one of my twin tails, and swiped as fast as I could.

What came forth was a slash that cut into the wall of the cave, with small chunks of rock falling around the impact sight.

[New ability gained: Eviscerate]

[Eviscerate]

[Description]: A slash of darkness that shoots forward through the air at high speeds, able to become invisible or visible through the wishes of its caster. (100-??? Mana)]

That attack took a bit out of me; my mana had dropped by basically a fourth. As I studied the ability, I came to a realization.

'Isn't this just a better form of cleave and dismantle from the cursed technique: shrine?' At that thought, my three heads grew sinister-looking grins.

While I looked at my abilities, I noticed that all abilities had a "novice" and a percentage next to them.

Eviscerate had a 1%, while all others were nothing. My manipulations also had a percentage, with darkness already at 5%.

It seems that I have a long way to go. Instead of staying idle, I tried to launch my new attack without swinging my tail or moving.

And to the surprise of no one, nothing happened. Of course, I wasn't at the level of the king of curses and couldn't just sit silent and movelessly throw out my attack.

I needed something I could flick quickly, as I didn't feel like doing a telegraphed tail swipe every single time I needed to use [Eviscerate].

Opening my mouth a small amount, a serpentine tongue slithered out. Quickly flicking my tongue, another deep slash was left on the side of the cave.

'Ohh, this could be good.' Another deep grin formed on my face from the thought.

If I flicked with my entire wing as if it were an arm, the slash would be more like a crescent. That would take a lot of energy and probably be massive.

'Could I flick my necks? That could surprise many creatures—an enemy turning away only for you to be hit by an invisible attack.' The second that thought finished, I flicked my left head's neck.

Sadly, nothing seemed to happen. I may need more experience, or it might not be possible.

With my mana below half, I wanted to test out the gravity beam. If I were correct, then in order to get the ability to absorb energy from life, I would need to reverse the flow of the beam.

Of course, it could always be similar to the way I absorb lightning, but as I have never done it, I don't know.

All my heads took a deep breath—wait, was this the first time I breathed in? My eyes widened in surprise as it seemed just like Monster Zero; I didn't need to breathe.

After exhaling, I took another deep breath, and my chest glowed a bright gold as the blackness of my scales flashed a hue of gold.

The gold then moved to my three necks as I pulled my long necks back in a "C" shape. Pushing my heads forward, gold electric currents blasted from my three mouths.

It felt as if I were breathing a heavy burp from my chest. Cutting off the breath attack, I tried to suck back in the "burp" that I had thrown out.

[New ability gained: Life Energy Absorption]

[Life Energy Absorption]

[Description]: By biting into any creature, you can absorb their life energy. Like a snake, but instead of injecting venom, you take their life energy. This ability will be canceled if none of your mouths are on the target.]

This ability was overpowered as fuck. I could see so many ways to use this. Take your enemy into the sky by wrapping your heads and tails around their necks and limbs, respectively.

Fly high into the air with them and suck out their life energy from orbit. If they break away, they're dropping out of orbit. If they don't, they die.

Not only does it drain their energy, but it saps away their strength as if their body lacks the oxygen to move, even though they may be fully conscious.

With the last 150 mana I had, I tried to make myself lighter by manipulating gravity. After all, time plus space equals gravity. If I can master gravity, then I can use it to affect time and space by a degree or a magnitude.

I tried making myself weigh as little as I possibly could, the closest I could get to weightlessness, but I found myself immediately stumped.

My mana had dropped to zero almost instantly; it seemed gravity would be hard to master.

With no mana left, I walked around on my wings and legs to correct more of my motor functions. As I did that, I counted in my mind. Three heads and a clear thinking space. I would need to know how long it would take for my mana to regenerate.

…

An hour had passed, and 412 out of 450 of my mana had regenerated. I counted the time and the seconds using my first head to watch the mana go up, my second head to count, and my last head to work on my motor functions.

I didn't let my mana fill to its maximum, as that would be a waste of precious time. Instead, I began waving my wings and flexing my muscles.

It would be sad if I couldn't fly because there wasn't enough strength in my wings. The air in the cave rapidly pushed away as I beat my wings just slow enough to avoid lifting myself into the air.

'What should I work on first?' I thought with my head that was watching my mana bar.

Gravity manipulation should be my first and last priority. First due to its strength, yet last due to needing to get stronger to make use of it.

I want enough mana to become the center of the galaxy, to pull in all other galaxy clusters, and to form a dense supercluster so that I can devour the very stars for their energy.

'I'll just work on more darkness-related abilities...' I had no idea what I should do next; my method of attack was near perfect as of now, so should I work on defense?

If I made Eviscerate visible to all, then it would be dodged. Now, seeing the attack and knowing it's coming, they'll wait and then be hit by the invisible version.

That's why I call Eviserate the "perfect assault." Once you see it, I only need to line up an invisible killing slash.

Suddenly, my eyes widened. A grin so massive that my mouths opened formed on my face.

I already have the perfect assault, so why not make the perfect defense?

Manipulating the darkness around me, I formed a bubble of invisible darkness around my entire form.

To others, this may look as if I am untouchable. No matter what attack they would throw at me, I would be unscathed.

'A... false infinity, if you would...' At that thought, I could barely contain the grin that formed from splitting my draconic face.

[New ability gained: False Infinity]

[False Infinity]

[Description]: An invisible bubble of darkness that surrounds you and absorbs damage. This shield can be as big as you want it or as small as you want it. From only covering your heart to covering your entire body like a glove or covering an entire planet, you can multilayer the bubble with more bubbles as long as you have the mana to sustain it.]

With the new ability, I made a small and invisible disk half a foot above the ground. I increased and decreased the size until it was enough for me to stand on yet small enough that my passive mana regeneration negated the consumption.

I stopped beating my wings for a second and took a step on the disk. I felt it tug on more of my mana as my weight pressed against it.

Surprisingly, it held together, and for a second, I stood on nothingness. The only thing that stopped me from standing on nothing indefinitely was my mana and the fact that I couldn't balance with the disk being so small.

There was one problem with my abilities. Holy light. If any of these abilities made from darkness were met with holy light, it is nearly guaranteed that they would shatter.

I would also have to make a shadow so that darkness could be used, but as I was guaranteed to become massive in the future, that was a very minuscule nitpick.

In the next instant, I formed three small disks and moved them around. I would need to make sure my concentration wasn't broken if I was hit, stunned, blinded, or under immense mental stress.

I split the disks into 20 smaller pieces and began moving them around. Each needed their own trajectory as they circled my three heads.

I would constantly tweak their speed to be faster than I could handle, and I would only slow them down when they were about to crash into each other.

Due to how small they were, my passive mana regeneration would cause me to not lose any mana, and if I pushed their speed too far, then it would only be 1 to 3 points of mana every 15 seconds.

With this, I was almost fully physically and mentally prepared. The only thing I needed to do was check if the sun was out and wait until night.

At night, not only was I the strongest, but my sight would enable me to see things in complete blackness, and if this was a medieval world, then there would be no lights to illuminate anything.

Most humans underestimate the darkness of a forest with no lights to illuminate anything. My flying would be close to undetectable by anything too far, and I could soar into the sky to get a view of the area.

As long as the moon wasn't out and there were some clouds over the area, my chances of being detected were low.

I would try and go on a killing spree of any creatures I could find. As I have levels, I can only assume that I should be able to level up and get more status points.

My plan was perfectly laid out.

All these safety measures and precautions are most definitely needed. I would rather be overly cautious than be dead or chased to the ends of the universe.

I don't even know what creatures are nearby; my plan may need to be tweaked further for any true dragons or kingdoms that may be nearby.

I may already be in a kingdom's domain... I need more information, so as of now, I'll continue with the first plan.

…

(A/N: I am tired as hell, 6,000 words in a 5-hour time frame. The sun is going to come up in two hours… if you're lucky I may just drop another chapter today or go to sleep. This one was closer to 2,000 words but that was due to my re-review of the chapter.)