Guess Who’s Back
The second Cain crash landed into the horde of Goblins he acquired the final eight Lesser Souls needed to rank up. As a result, Cain felt the heat in his chest rise and felt power surge through his very being.
Unfortunately, Cain was a little too preoccupied with something else to worry about his potential evolution! While fighting against the overwhelming power surging from his heart, Cain's arms danced alongside a symphony of shrieks and howls released by the Goblins.
Never letting up, Cain's arms slashed and pierced relentlessly! He dug his blades into the hearts and brains of every Goblin he could, slaughtering maniacally!
At some point, an unmoving wall of flesh surrounded him – corpses so vast in number that mounds of them stacked around Cain. At some point, the remaining Goblin horde had to climb atop their slain brethren just to fall into a black pit of death moments later.
Disorientated by Cain's |Blackout|, many of the Goblins started killing indiscriminately – slicing the flesh off of their fellow green brothers and ripping their limbs from their torsos. The Goblins were beasts, after all, and they made sure to fight like it.
When Cain cut off their arms, they used their teeth.
When Cain cut off their heads, their bodies refused to relent and assaulted Cain with their nails!
Cain paid attention to his Spirit Sea, he knew he couldn't afford to be caught empty today. His enhanced eyes scanned his surroundings and he made sure to take a moment to memorize as many mana signatures as he could before canceling |Blackout|.
Instantly, the black sea that devoured the jungle floor dispersed. At the same time, Cain deactivated |Spirit Sight| – causing his glowing eyes to return to their mundane state.
Now when looking around, from the sky to the sea, Cain's vision was red. Blood covered the jungle floor. It painted the trunks of the trees and splattered high into the air. About a hundred Goblins remained, at least from what Cain estimated through seeing their mana signatures.
The remaining Goblins were scattered through the jungle though, and many of them were equipped with bows and hidden in the brush or behind a tree.
Cain climbed out of the pit of corpses. He stepped on the Goblin's minced flesh and tugged at their torn appendages to escape.
Upon showing his face, a handful of arrows cut through the wind and rained down on Cain's position. Indifference still in his eyes, Cain raised his arms towards the sky to block the arrows.
His katana arms unfurled and stretched until two small black shields took their place. The poisoned arrows smacked against Cain's shielded arms and dropped to the ground.
Meanwhile, all Cain felt was a tickle.
"I need more Abilities. . ." Cain huffed as he bent his knees.
Cain's facial expression turned serious as he pushed off the corpse of the Goblin he stood upon. Abruptly, Cain's figure vanished from atop the hill of corpses and appeared fifty feet away, beside the trunk of a tree where an arrow was just launched from.
Cain's figure towered above the lone Goblin and for a moment, Cain was sure he saw fear in the beast's eyes, but Cain didn't stop. He reached his black palm forward and grabbed the Goblin's throat.
Raising the feral creature off the ground, the beast's claws danced across Cain's forearm but failed to leave even a scratch behind. A moment later, the joints in Cain's fingers bent and the Goblin's neck cracked.
Limp, Cain tossed the corpse to the ground and rushed towards another.
For the next hour, Cain ran around the jungle floor and individually hunted the remaining Goblins – slaughtering them all without spilling more blood; there was already too much of it pooling around quite frankly.
After snapping the neck of the last critter, Cain waltzed around the jungle searching for the canopy of vines he threw Olive into earlier. Thankfully, he found her rather quickly, but was surprised when he found her asleep alongside another random person.
"Now how do I get up there?" Cain pondered aloud while staring hundreds of feet skyward.
"Couldn't I just bring them down?" Cain realized.
He flung his hand towards the vines and a smaller, hand-sized |Corrupt Slash| bolted off his fingertips and soared across the sky. This mini version of his Ability easily sliced through the vines that bound Olive and the stereotypical blonde male.
Now at the mercy of gravity, Olive and Leon plummeted. As their eyes burst open, more screams polluted the air.
Luckily, Leon quickly understood the situation and slammed his hands into his pockets, not waiting another second to conjure his |Fairy Dust|!
Leon doused himself in the golden sand and his descent immediately slowed. In the meantime, Cain studied Leon's antics from the jungle floor while trying to figure out how to catch both of them.
Realizing Leon had it under control, Cain positioned himself underneath Olive and waited patiently.
Olive slammed into Cain's arms and cracked the jungle floor beneath his feet. Still though, she returned to the surface.
"Thanks. . ." Olive muttered while she pushed a mouthful of vomit back down her throat.
"Don't thank me yet –" Cain interjected, "I'm definitely about to pass out."
"W-what?!" Olive shouted.
Before Cain could say more, however, his vision darkened and he tumbled over onto the minced flesh of Goblin corpses. As his consciousness faded, Cain heard his Status whisper to him.
[Souls Harvested 1,413/100]
[Warning. . .]
[Lesser Souls Harvested Exceed Evolution Requirements]
[Redirecting Evolution]
[Redirecting. . .]
[Redirecting. . .]
[Suitable Pathway Located]
[Beginning Evolution]
Olive watched with her mouth agape the peacefully resting Cain. His pitch black hair was spiked up, covered in blood and sweat, stiff to the touch and he wore a white linen shirt that looked two sizes too large with black baggy pants and leather boots.
Studying his build, however, Olive noticed Cain's change in size. He was bigger than before. His muscles bulged slightly wider than normal and definition shaped his body as if he were an ancient Roman statue. His skin was still pale, lifeless almost, like a vampires', and his parted lips remained soft and pink.
And although she couldn't see them, Cain's strongest feature was assuredly his eyes – as they were golden, near irradiant irises that sat snug behind his eyelids. When he wasn't awake, he looked like a perfect little prince.
Then, Leon finally touched down from his magical descent.
"Who's this guy?" Leon asked.
"This is Cain –" Olive replied readily, "my demon."
"Oh cool." Leon patted the dirt off his pants.
"I'm sorry did you say demon?" Leon stopped in his tracks.
***
With the Goblin horde now culled, Olive and Leon rushed back to the pyramid as quickly as they could and due to their dire circumstance, they mutually agreed not to search for any potential escort survivors or newly summoned folks.
The reality was too grim for any of that.
At this moment, Olive and Leon chose to put the lives of their friends above the lives of potential strangers.
Having already slept a couple of hours in the canopy, Leon regenerated enough mana to carry Cain through the air. Also, before the trio left, Olive and Leon rapidly dug through many of the Goblin corpses in search of Magic Crystals.
After an hour of searching, they were able to rip out twelve crystals – a horrible rate considering the literal thousand of corpses at their feet, but they were racing against the clock.
With Leon's mana actively rising, they rushed through the jungle towards the pyramid they called home.
Amidst their travel, Cain's body also began to change. The black of his arms extended, further consuming his skin until his biceps were devoured and then his shoulders. Luckily, the black portion halted at his neck, but could now be seen through the collar of his shirt.
His body also miraculously grew longer. To Olive and Leon, witnessing this was the most horrific of all.
The pair stopped running through the jungle the moment they heard Cain's body snap. His bones and joints broke apart and lengthened only to be reattached later. His shoulders broadened, his legs extended, and his arms bulged under the re-making of his body.
They chose not to touch him at this time, but if Olive had opened Cain's mouth, she would have also seen his teeth sharpen while more of them sprouted behind his molars.
His eyes too, although closed, underwent a subtle change. Within Cain's golden irises, a black ring now circled his pupils.
After a day and a half of non-stop running, something Olive couldn't believe she was capable of, they finally made it back to the ancient pyramid. When they arrived, however, the walls were scorched, many of them burned to ash alongside the archer towers. The wooden structures, too, littered the apocalyptic space.
Corpses, both human and Goblin, lay buried underneath the ash and debris that could be seen.
With their senses heightened, Olive and Leon (and the floating poster boy) carefully approached the pyramid's entrance. Thus far, the duo had yet to hear or see anything concerning, but the complete destruction of their camp still kept them on edge.
They cleared each floor of the pyramid, but found no life whatsoever until finally, they reached the final level.
Scattered across the floor of the great hall, corpses lay rotting. Most of them were Goblin, but mixed between the green flesh, brown skin of varying shades were seen too. The smell of iron permeated the space, thick and heavy. And due to how deep they were in the ground, the air barely ventilated.
The great hall was hot and sticky. It carried a pungent smell of rotting flesh and a heavy miasma of death.
At the opposite end of the room, a black portal stood where the pyramid's Gate once was.
Before entering any further, Leon stepped in front of Olive and spread his arms open.
"I vote we wait for sleeping beauty to wake up before going in there!" Leon nearly begged, exhaustion clearly weighing down his movements.
"I agree. We need rest." Olive nodded. "Let's go back to the first floor, at least we can breathe easy up there."
"Thank god. . . ." Leon's shoulders slumped over.
Thus, the unlikely duo returned to the main floor of the pyramid, where the meetings regularly took place. Leon laid Cain on the floor while Olive took a seat on the bench just outside the entrance.
She couldn't believe it was still standing.
"Mind if I sit?" Leon approached from behind.
"I don't control you." Olive scoffed.
"Right! Well. Okay then!" Leon sat.
… (Awkward Silence)
"Do you think they're dead?" Leon asked.
Surprised, Olive looked over at Leon. He had long and messy sandy blonde hair that grew past his nose. His cheeks were covered in freckles and a scar ran horizontally across his chin. While waiting for Olive's response, his pale blue eyes gazed down at his hands that had long ago been stained red with blood.
"I don't think they're dead." Olive replied.
… (More Awkward Silence)
"What happened to the Goblins?" Leon asked. "I fainted in the air and next thing I knew. . . I was falling again."
Now it was Olive's turn to look down at her hands, melancholy flashing across her face.
"You asked me earlier why I don't use my Ability, remember?" Olive suddenly asked.
"Yeah? But what does that ha –"
"I have to sacrifice someone I love." Olive finished and Leon shut his mouth.
"You mean?" Leon muttered.
"Yeah," Olive sighed, "I killed Summer while we were falling. The moment she died, Cain appeared and threw us into the vines. . . ." Olive clenched her fists.
"He slaughtered them all alone!" She spat.
"Wow!" Leon exasperated. "I can't believe I missed it!"
//////
Romance_guy, walkingbush, and devilgod_of_Chaos THANK YOU for the power stones as always :3