Chapter 9

[You killed a Lesser Fenrir. Gained 3 Million EXP.]

[Level Up! You're now Level 15!]

[Options for a new Bloodline Skill available. Would you like to view it?]

He was confused at the large amounts of experience points he'd just earned. This had never happened to him before and naturally he turned to the only one who could answer his question. "System! What happened?"

[Your Personal Attribute 'Gaze of Wisdom' is too low-leveled to properly view the status of any gate creature with a higher ranking than B. Hence, there was a mistake in my calculations.]

"So…What were its real stats?"

[I cannot disclose the full information, but the Lesser Fenrir's ranking is A-]

Theodore swallowed nervously, he can compare the rank to his own stats so it wasn't that difficult to get a grasp at its true strength. "System, can you tell me about the Lesser Fenrirs?"

[Negative. 'Gaze of Wisdom' needs to be at least Level 5 to gain access to the information.]

"What's the requirement for the upgrade?" As soon as he said that, a blue light screen appeared in front of him.

<<Personal Attribute: Gaze of Wisdom

Lvl.4

Requirement for Upgrade: Spend 30 Skills Points to immediately upgrade [OR] Reach Level 20 (Note: The skill will level up regardless if you spend Skill Points.)

Cooldown: None

Description: Your eyes see through all that is hidden. The attribute allows you to view the personal information of any gate creature you look at. This includes: Name. Related info such as 'Species' or 'Rarity'. Level. Strength and Weakness, and Minor description. Upgrading this attribute will allow you to see more information.>>

"Damn it!" He was one level away from being able to upgrade Gaze of Wisdom, although even if it's frustrating, he couldn't do much about it right now.

"Whatever!" He turned towards the Lesser Fenrir while the effects of [Devouring Winter] was slowly dissipating, the snow and ice began to melt while the trees around him magically came back to life, its fruits and leaves grew back and gave the entire area a sense of serenity, it felt as if the spell hadn't been used at all.

[Ambitious Snake: Devour]

The large silhouette of himself swallowed the black wolf and the rest of its pack, due to his larger size, the light snake had also grown accordingly.

It still had only a minor problem swallowing all ten large corpses but it managed to do so in the end.

After he felt his belly swelled up slightly, the serpent clone disappeared while he opened his status window.

<<Name: Theodore Varon

Species: The Ouroboros Serpent (15 Meters)

[Options for a new Bloodline Skill available.]

Lvl: 15

EXP: 771,050/890,000

Skill Points: 28

HP: 212,050/280,000 [Regenerating]

MP: 70/965

Rank: A

Attack: 260 (C+)

Speed: 400 (B+)

Defense: 200 (C-)

Charm: 50 (E+)

Intelligence: 120 (D-)

Magic: 310 (B-)

Personal Attributes: Gaze of Wisdom (Lvl.4). Thermal Vision (Lvl.MAX). Venom (Lvl.5). Agility (Lvl. 2). Tongue Receptor (Lvl.4). Will to Live (Lvl.2). Deitify (Lvl.MAX). All-Speak (Lvl.MAX)

Skills: Ice Magic (Lvl.4). Ambitious Snake: Devour (Lvl.2). Master of Poison (Lvl.2). Persistence (Lvl.2). Flames of Pride (Lvl.3)

Bloodline Skills: Embodiment of Chaos (Lvl.2). Super Regeneration [50%] (Lvl.3). Corrupting Touch [50%] (Lvl. 2). Divine Blaze (Lvl.1)>>

"Show me my new Bloodline Skills."

[You have three (3) new options.]

<<Bloodline Skills

-Abyss' Eyes: When one stares into the abyss, the abyss gazes back. The unknown of a bottomless pit of darkness can cause fear into anyone who dares to look into it. Once this skill is activated, you can stare into the souls of any target you glance at, inducing them with unimaginable fear and distress, while someone is under your influence, you can see, hear, and smell all of their hidden feelings and you'll be able to tell the difference between what is truth and what is lie.

-Blessings of a God: Under your influences, those you considers your ally will gained a 20% increase to all of their stats. This aura of divinity can reduce stress and pain from injuries while during battle it'll strengthen their morale. If an ally's faith towarsd you is high enough, they'll temporarily gained the weaker version of the attribute 'Super Regeneration' which will last until all of their wounds are healed.

-Coldest Death: Have you ever felt Death's touch? Have you felt its cold, frozen hands gripping at your soul as it beckons you to the afterlife? Because you've cross path with the Reaper multiple times, you can now learn to manipulate its aspect to your likings. Your ice magic will become as cold as Death itself and anyone who stands before the great Winter Frost mage shall feel the Reaper's gaze staring right at them.>>

[I recommend you pick an ability with the 'Evil' attribute for balance.] Ouroboros' voice rang out and Theodore instantly agreed with the god.

After looking at his skills, he'd seen that most of the Bloodline Skills leans towards the 'Creation' line which would be bad if he wants to walk the path of 'Balance'. He didn't want to imagine what sort of things would happen to him if he doesn't properly manage his skills, there's only so much that the consciousness of a god could do.

But now, there's the choice of whether to pick 'Abyss' Eyes' or 'Coldest Death'.

[Picking Coldest Death will level up the skill 'Ice Magic' by one level.]

As the System's voice sounded, Theodore's eyes fixated on the skill and he groaned with annoyance. He was really excited when he saw that the previous Bloodline Skill option had shown up in this one, it would be really nice to have that extra utility for when he needed to interrogate people, although another great skill had shown up and now he's torn between two very useful abilities.

"System, would any of these skills show up next time?"

[Coldest Death will not show up again. However, there's a chance that 'Abyss' Gaze' and 'Blessings of a God' would be in the other Bloodline Skills options.]

After hearing that answer, he let out a sigh of relief. "Okay, I'll take those odds. I pick the 'Coldest Death' skill then."

[Very well.]

<<Skills: Ice Magic (Lvl.4) —> Ice Magic (Lvl.5)>>

<<Due to the new Bloodline Skill, [Coldest Death], the Sub-Skill [Devouring Frost] has been upgraded to [Devouring Winter]>>

<<Bloodline Skills: Coldest Death [NEW!]

Lvl. 1

Type: Active Skill

Requirement for Upgrade: Skill will upgrade if your Ice Magic is used often. Estimated 7-31 Days for a single level.

Cooldown: None

Description: This Bloodline Skill enhances your magic's strength to a tremendous amount. You can freeze an entire human being in under a minute and your spells will give off an eerie feeling, which can induce fear into weak-minded enemies. Your ice can now wither all those that is considers 'Life', when used on a target, they'll continuously lose 5 Hit Points every second.>>

It seemed that at the very least 'Gaze of Wisdom' would now give him just a bit more information on his skills too. Theodore let out a sigh before dismissing the panels.

He looked up at the sky, by this time the sun had risen quite high, signaling that it's around eight or nine in the morning. "I've just started hunting and I've already gotten a new Bloodline Skill, so I can't complain too much."

Still, he couldn't help but feel frustrated that he couldn't satisfy his curiosity. How did a monster know about such a specific spell? And the way the alpha wolf had called it 'Sacred Breath of Boreas' made it seem like there's more to the world's game-like changes than what was seen on the surface.

'What exactly is going on?'

Theodore shook his head, pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind, he wouldn't waste his time pondering about something that large-scale right now. His goal is revenge, if he needs to tear the world apart to achieve it then so be it. After steeling his resolve, he flicked his tongue and continued to hunt for monsters

.

.

.

The room was filled with an eerie silence, the ceiling lights were off and the only source of illumination came from the large glass plane that showed the view of a busy city below.

A man stood while staring down at the scene. His hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers. He had a large build so his black suit brought out the tough outlines of his figure. "Rhys, how's the project going?"

A tanned young man stood by the door, he wore a fancy dark brown suit and his dirty-blonde hair was combed back and jelled nicely. Although, despite his handsome appearance, his blue eyes were gleaming with clear warriness. "It is going well, father. After the potential threat has been eliminated, we have nothing to worry about."

"Eliminated, you say?" The older man's fierce azure eyes glanced towards his son, who flinched at the sight of his terrifying gaze. "But 'he' told me that 'nuisance' is still alive."

Rhys's muscles tensed up as his eyes widened with surprise. "Huh? But that's impossible! Father, I killed him with my own two hands!"

"I know." The man said in a calm tone, which made the younger boy relax a little. "'That person' suspects that another one of 'its kind' is backing that person, so we can't recklessly approach them."

Rhys frowned. "I don't know who Father had been communicating with at all…" The young man thought to himself, getting reckless at the thought of him failing to satisfy his father. "Who can they be? S ranks? No…There hasn't been a case of an S rank hero appearing before…"

At his current state, Rhys is around B rank since it's extremely difficult for anyone that's B rank or above to gain more strength, and even after five years had passed, he still couldn't achieve a breakthrough, being stuck at B after getting up from C+.

"What do you want me to do, Father? I can secretly dispatch a search team to find 'that person'."

"…No."

"Father?"

The room fell into silence once again, causing nervousness to rise in Rhys' throat and he soon found it abnormally difficult to breathe. "P—Please say something…"

The uncomfortable air would dissipate the moment his father spoke.

"Rhys, go find the remaining members of the Varon family."

.

.

.

<<Name: Theodore Varon

Species: The Ouroboros Serpent (15 Meters)

[Evolutions have changed into Bloodline Skills. Reaching Level 5 will give you an option for new skills]

Lvl: 16

EXP: 550,120/910,000

Skill Points: 0

HP: 282,000/282,000

MP: 975/975

Rank: A

Attack: 260 (C+)

Speed: 400 (B+)

Defense: 200 (C-)

Charm: 50 (E+)

Intelligence: 120 (D-)

Magic: 310 (B-)

Personal Attributes: Gaze of Wisdom (Lvl.5). Thermal Vision (Lvl.MAX). Venom (Lvl.5). Agility (Lvl. 2). Tongue Receptor (Lvl.4). Will to Live (Lvl.2). Deitify (Lvl.MAX). All-Speak (Lvl.MAX)

Skills: Ice Magic (Lvl.5). Ambitious Snake: Devour (Lvl.2). Master of Poison (Lvl.2). Persistence (Lvl.2). Flames of Pride (Lvl.3)

Bloodline Skills: Embodiment of Chaos (Lvl.2). Super Regeneration [50%] (Lvl.3). Corrupting Touch [50%] (Lvl. 2). Divine Blaze (Lvl.1). Coldest Death (Lvl.1)>>

Theodore had been hunting until evening, mostly he killed both the hydra variants, drakes, and chimeras. He couldn't get much experience points after the encounter with the direwolf pack, but today's hunt was still very satisfactory considering he'd gained six levels and a bunch of upgrades to his existing skills.

"That's enough for today."

He looked up at the orange-tinted sky. After taking note of the time, he would make his way over to the entrance of the Delphi Forest, where he'd promised to meet up with Merlin after they were done with their businesses.

It took him about twenty minutes to get there even without using his full speed.

He'd pretty much memorized the short cuts and preferable paths within the outer edges of the Delphi Forest, combined with the fact his speed stat is 400, even without pushing himself to his limit, he could still travel at a fast pace.

He coiled himself up and waited for his friend to come, his eyes looking towards his left where the Stella Academy was located as he rested his head on the ring of his body.

"Hey! Mister Snake!" A desperate voice sounded out from behind the bushes. Theodore lifted his head and turned towards a young blonde boy who was clutching his knee as he panted intensively, trying to catch his breath.

"…" He didn't answer the boy and simply stared at him, confused as to why a human teen would willingly approach a nature's anomaly like him, but eventually, the bleached-haired youngster finally gathered himself together and spoke loudly.

"Teacher sent me to get you! He needs help!"

'Teacher…?' Theodore was immediately hooked on the blonde's words. He could only guess that he meant 'Merlin'. 'What happened?'

He didn't wait a second longer and began slithering back into the forest, his tongue flicking constantly as he tried searching for the scent of his friend.

"He…! He's at least a kilometer northeast of here!" The young boy shouted from behind as he tried to run after him.

However, with his staggering 400 Speed, it didn't take Theo very long to leave the teen in the dust.

Finally, his leveled-up 'Tongue Receptor' attribute would pick up on something. "There!" He turned a sharp right and emerged into an open field, the trees parted revealing a bloody scene up ahead.

"Roar!!" A powerful, booming cry left ringings in his nonexistent ears.

He saw a few teenagers crouching on the ground with wounds on their body towards his right, a few of them were lying on the bloodied floor while groaning in pain.

Counting a total of six, all of them had terrified expressions on their faces, a girl was even sobbing with pure fear as they all stared at the monster in front of them.

Though, a familiar figure was also standing in front of the group of youngsters, as if trying 5o protect them. His clothes were tattered and burnt marks could be seen on his skin, his usually messy red hair became more of a jumbled mess as he stood with a dagger in his hand, on the ground next to his legs were fragments of what looked to be a bow.

<<Name: Merlin Everhart

HP: 124,500/200,000

Species: Awakened Human

Rank: B-

Class: Hunter

Specialty: Archery

[Level of the attribute 'Gaze of Wisdom' is still too low to view the other informations.]>>

He didn't even have time to care about the fact that he could now see the information on his friend. He was too busy staring at a creature that was towering over all of them as its mesmerizing golden eyes looked down on the humans as if they were nothing but bugs before it.

<<Red-scaled Dragon

Lvl: 74

Rank: A

Age: Young (100-500 years old.)

Yield: 1 Million EXP.

Strength: Dragons are extremely powerful creatures. They have immense strength and could easily burn everything to ashes with their fiery breaths. High level dragons possessed the intelligence of humans and some could even speak using magic.

Weakness: These majestic beasts are usually without a clear weakness. However, this particular red-scaled dragon has a 'Fire' attribute, so it will be vulnerable to powerful water or ice attacks. A dragon's weakness is also said to be its belly, which is where the scales are softer.

Description: A famous behemoth everyone had heard the name of, dragons comes in many shapes, sizes, and attribute. Some can breathe fire while some can cause storms wherever it went. Dragons are one of the most powerful gate creatures out of all and an ambitious one could set the whole world ablaze. They're tenacious, intelligent, and prideful beings who won't stop attacking until a total victory is achieved, they're also the one of the few monsters who could cast magic spells.

Expanded: This dragon is extremely arrogant, it likes to toy with its prey before killing them slowly and painfully, often crippling them then cooking them alive with its fire breath. While it is intelligent, it's not very clever and couldn't see through tricks. Your best bet in beating this dragon is to use a well-planned strategy.>>

Luckily, the 'Gaze of Wisdom' attribute now lets him see a potential way to defeat his enemy in the 'Expanded' description instead of it just being a longer explanation of its aforementioned weaknesses.

Theodore kept a calm mind as he turned to face his friend. "Merlin, you get the kids out first, I'll distract it."

Merlin glanced at him with a concerned look on his face. "I know I called you for help but…You'll be okay, right?"

"Why don't you put a little more faith in your friend?"

"It's not like I don't trust you, I'm worried!"

"Teacher!" A boy from the group shouted a warning, fear shaking his voice.

Suddenly the red dragon let out another roar and breathed fire at the ginger. Theo wouldn't just stand there and watch though, he appeared in front of his friend and opened his mouth, letting his own fire breath counter the incoming attack.

[The Bloodline Skill: Divine Blaze has enhanced the skill 'Flames of Pride']

[Your flame will burn everything you consider your enemy!]

Theodore's fire began pushing the dragon's breath back, its eyes widened as it clearly didn't expect a snake to have a stronger attack than it.

[Your confidence has increased!]

[Temporary: Flames of Pride (Lvl.3) —> Flames of Pride (Lvl.4)]

It only took ten seconds for his fire breath to hit the dragon in its face, it let out a roar of annoyance but otherwise it simply shook its head, unscathed by the attack.

<<MP: 965/975>>

Theodore prepared an ice spell, not giving the enemy any time to rest. Magic circles appeared on all sides surrounding the dragon. It growled deeply as if showing no concern over the magic as it tried to claw its way out of its bounding.

'Thunk!'

When the vicious razors made contact with the arcane, it merely bounced back while making a firm sound. The dragon's eyes widened with surprise and it was about to use its fire breath. However, Theo didn't waste anymore time and immediately released his skill.

[Frost Spear]

Five pikes made of ice emerged from the intricate circles and shot towards the monster at incredible speeds. Due to its lack of space, all of the attacks impaled themselves deeply into its skin, causing it to let out an ear-deafening cry of pain.

[The Fragment of the Original is responding to the Bloodline Skill 'Embodiment of Chaos!]

[Proficiency is increasing!]

The red-scaled behemoth tried to spread its wings. However, it could only unfurl them halfway before suddenly it began to stagger, struggling to keep itself standing. The icicle spears had embedded themselves deep into its sides and back, but any awakened human should feel the intense eerie aura radiating from those spears.

[The Bloodline Skill 'Coldest Death' is reacting to 'Embodiment of Chaos'!]

[The Personal Attribute 'Gaze of Wisdom' has reached the necessary requirements. Showing more information.]

[The target 'Red-scaled Dragon' has been induced with the status 'Discord of the Flesh'!]

<<Status Condition: Discord of the Flesh

Source: Chaos.

Description: Anything that'd been hit with an attack imbued by the power of Chaos will have a chance of getting inflicted with the condition 'Discord of the Flesh', the target's body would slowly and sometimes randomly malfunction until eventually the heart and brain fails to keep up along with the rest of the body. Only Order could restore the victim's inoperable physique.

[Currently, your skill 'Embodiment of Chaos' is too low level. The aforementioned effect's susceptibility will be reduced accordingly.]>>

The red dragon let out multiple thunder-like outcries as it fell onto the ground, its legs twisted in weird angles as it slowly began to lose control over its bodily functions.

It glared at Theodore with anger in its golden eyes before speaking for the first time. "You dare to use tricks in a fight of beasts!? How cowardly!"

He hissed at the monster as if mocking it. "Battles don't always rely on pure strength! That is a fatal mistake on your part!"

Another magic circle appeared directly on the ground beneath the dragon, it expanded outwards until it was as large as its body. In only a moment, chains emerged from the arcane and began wrapping themselves around the red dragon's frame, causing frost to spread across its scales and down to the flesh.

"…You! This magic…!"

Theodore stared at the monster with interest the moment it'd exclaimed out loud. "Oh? You know something about it?"

"I knew it felt familiar…But I won't ever tell you what I know!" A growl escaped the dragon's fanged mouth. "It doesn't matter anyway, 'he' will come for you soon enough."

"He?" Theo would've frowned if he could. "Who's 'he'!? You better answer me or else!"

"Ha! Or else what? I am destined to die the moment I meet you, 'Chaos' Apostle'."

Before he could ask it anything else, it seemed that the strength of using both his Bloodline Skills had backfired at him. It didn't take very long for the dragon to freeze from the inside out, it would soon be killed in a few more seconds.

During its last moments, the red dragon looked at Theodore with a mocking expression, the words it'd uttered through its frozen maw left him anchored in place with shock.

"You should've been more careful of what you wished for, human."