Soul Snatcher

"Maybe, Just maybe we could have been friends...." Those were the last things Michael heard before darkness encroached upon him, dragging him into its cold, everlasting embrace.

'Maybe we could have been friends If I weren't such an asshole to him' Michael felt an odd sensation of indifference at the thought and even more oddly he knew that said indifference wasn't usually common for him yet he just didn't find reason to care finding it amusing at the most.

'Just where the hell am I?' Michael was a bit perplexed as he technically shouldn't be able to think if he was dead, or at least he thought so. Michael never believed in any god or higher deity for if they were true then they shouldn't have let his brother die and shouldn't have condemned him to such a painful existence.

As he pondered on his situation a string of blood-red letters appeared before him ungodly from the very sight of them bringing a searing pain upon him that burned at all that he was the words quickly shifted to English and the pain subsided.

[Demonic Evolution System Installed]

[Host Is within Greapefie, Domain a place in between life and death a place nearly impossible to enter]

'What the fuck...' He had heard some rather nerdy students within his school talk about these scenarios where the main character of whatever they were watching or reading dies and gets system or an overpowered ability or something. 

Seeing that he was suspended in darkness and was somehow able to think he had seen the whole system, insane cheat and reincarnation thing happening but to have it truly confirmed was perplexing and the shock he felt soon shifted into excitement.

He had never read those types of things as he couldn't afford any devices at home and didn't want to ask any of the nerdy students to let him read with them as he didn't want to appear as a fantasy book worm or even worse, a weeb or geek and thus just silently tried to pay attention to what they said as he secretly liked the genre, he found it cool.

However another thing struck him, the system was called the Demonic Evolution System and from the name, two words struck him more heavily than the thought of being reincarnated. Demonic and Evolution, he had a feeling that by demonic it meant demons as in the race, and evolution is when a living creature changes into a different more helpful form.

He was living, albeit in some sort of demented form as he was said to be stuck in a place located in between life and death, whatever that meant. 

Since he was somewhat living and only living things evolved and his system was called the demonic evolution system, did that mean he would evolve into a demon??

He realized that most systems could answer questions and his could too as it had responded when he wondered where he was and so he asked another question hoping for it to be answered as well.

'Will I evolve into a demon?'

[Due to the host lacking a physical body it cannot 'evolve' into a demon and thus will be sent into a demon's soul space and absorb its soul and with the help of the system turn into a true demon soul]

Michael was speechless, he didn't know how to respond at all but before he could even ponder on this and how it could even work the system spoke again.

[Teleport to abyss soul incubation commencing in three seconds....]

'Wait what the fuck give me a second!!'

[Two seconds remaining till jump....]

'How do I even fight as a soul??'

[Teleport commencing....]

With the last string of blood-red runes disappearing his vision shifted from the darkness he had gotten used to a bit to a different form of black, however unlike before he could finally feel to some extent.

A couple of meters away from him stood an impish figure. The imp-like soul was blood-red and about as tall as him which either meant he was just really small for a human soul or demon souls were just large.

The soul didn't seem to have any sort of malicious intent and just stood there with a blank look in its hazy eyes.

'How do I even absorb it?'

And as if answering his call a string of blood-red runes appeared before him.

[New Skill Obtained: Demonic Soul Absorption: Upon making contact with a demonic soul its soul shall be absorbed by you]

'Seems relatively simple' 

Michael slowly crept towards the demon, watching if it would attack as demons were known for being vile, and evil creatures prone to causing misery, destruction, and other evil things.

The demon soul didn't do anything even as he walked around, inspecting it and waiting for it to do something. Michael even stuck his hand out at it but it stood idle, like a statue of crimson.

'This seems way too good to be true' Michael stared it down before walking back and inspecting it some more.

'Hmmmm'

As Michael pondered on his situation a stray thought flew through his mind and he wondered just how he hadn't thought of it before.

'Status page!'

True Name: Skiodis Energeia Kelyfos

Health: 10/10

Race: Newborn Human Soul

Rank: Incubation State I

Sub Rank: Minor Stage I

Soul Energy: 0/10

True Soul Size: 3 feet diameter

Soul Form(1/2): Human Form

Strength: 1 (x0.1)

Speed: 1 (x0.1)

Vitality: 0 (x0)

Defense: 1 (x0.1)

Constitution: 0

Mana Potency: 0

Mana Capacity: 0

Free stat points:

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Skills: [Demonic Soul Absorption: The souls of the dammed are mere footsteps on your journey so use them as such and let them elevate you to higher levels]

[Spiritual Body: Your body grows not with the passing of time but the accumulation of mana]

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Michael stared at the right side of his screen which had a 3D model of him, It was a short man with no facial features or anything human-like about him, just a tall glowing white thing with a rough human outline. Every once in a while though it changed into his 'True Form' which was a small shining white ball with a large, menacing grin on its face, its maw full of sharp, knife-like teeth.

STRENGTH was a multiplier that used his constitution as a base for how much force he could exert onto someone's body, the strength state only multiplied the force exerted when someone was attacked with bare fists or with a catalyst such as mace or hammer. 

STRENGTH gives a 0.1 physical damage buff for every 1-point added to it as of currently.

SPEED was a multiplier for the amount of acceleration he could achieve while doing any sort of movement such as flying, running, jumping, punching, or kicking, although this was mainly what it did, speed also affected how fast the brain was so the higher the speed the faster one's brain works, speed like strength was also used his constitution as a base for its multiplication.

SPEED gives a 0.1-speed buff for every 1-point added to it as of currently.

DEFENSE was a multiplier for the body's resistance to all sorts of damage ranging from being pierced and slashed to being put in a man-sized blender it even gave resistance to other, more magical attacks.

DEFENSE gives a 0.1-defense buff for every 1-point added to it currently.

VITALITY was the stat that determined the amount of life energy within a body as well as its potency, life energy determined how long one could live, how fast life energy reacted to injuries, and how well one could re-assemble the body, which helped with regeneration, evolution, and fighting against poison and such.

VITALITY increases life energy within the body by 0.1x with every 1 point in it as of currently

CONSTITUTION was like a base form for all stats, vitality, and mana capacity included. An easy way to think about all the physical stats was like this: Constitution was a base form that increased, mana capacity, strength, speed, vitality, and defense as it was trained, or in this case with every point put in it, The other stats like strength, speed etc were forms that increased their said stat.

CONSTITUTION increases damage, speed, defense, vitality, and mana capacity by 0.1 as of currently.

MANA POTENCY was a stat that increased the all-around stats of one's mana, let's say one makes a sword formed of fire mana, more magical potency makes the flames more powerful, it made the blade more durable, made the blade sharper and more lethal.

MANA CAPACITY was the stat that determined the amount of true mana your body could hold, of course, mana that the body couldn't store could be kept around the user like an aura or maybe even as a sword or something similar however it took a lot of mana control to keep it as such, mana capacity stat was a multiplier for the amount of mana one could hold and its base was the constitution stat.

MANA CAPACITY increases true mana capacity by 0.5x for every one point invested in it as of currently.

Another thing Michael had learned as a result of the mana capacity, mana potency, and vitality stats was that only when a soul formed a body or inhabited a body with at least 35% soul-to-body synergy was life energy and true mana produced as the two were products of the mixing of soul energy or soul essence and bodily energy which some people referred to as inner energy.

For those reasons, he had no true mana and no life energy at all however the demon souls didn't have a body either, and thus they too had no life energy or mana. Another thing he learned was that his race as a human soul didn't give any stat buffs as his soul energy was to spread out.

However, in his true form which was a small ball made completely of soul essence, in this form he saw not with his eyes but through the mana around him which was quite ironic as although he could manipulate ambient mana in his surroundings which was far harder to control and had far lesser effects that true mana which he couldn't wield due to not having a body inhabit.

He also learned that his true soul size was the size of his true form which was as the status page said, 3 feet in diameter.

The influx of information had shown him just how weak he was and this ignited something within him, something from deep within his very essence, it was a hint of the tainted, it was the stench of the demonic.

Michael, now in his true form felt a sense of security and safety as if he was tucked deep within his covers on a dark stormy night.

Michael in his true form moved by using the ambient mana to push himself, something that had taken him a bit to get used to. 

Michael had shaped his soul essence so that he was no longer just a ball of soul essence but a spikey ball of soul essence and using his mana control he shot himself toward the hazy crimson figure and activated the skill on contact.

And he just slid through it was almost no resistance for a second he almost thought that he had phased through it with him being a soul and all but as his senses spread to the demon he saw that the demon had a gap within its chest.

He stood there for a second, waiting for the system to say something but seeing that it had not said anything he darted back to it and continued to use the numerous spikes on his body to absorb parts of the creature's soul and after the last wisps of the soul were gone he heard a ding, accompanied by a string of blood red runes.

[Demonic Soul absorbed, One soul energy acquired!]

[Demonic Soul completely absorbed, does host wish to absorb more demonic souls or continue on demonic progression, choose cautiously, this soul was chosen as it was the easiest to absorb as it hadn't formed a conciseness yet other souls might have formed one, and will attack on sight which may result in hosts death]

Michael looked on happily at the first notification, happy that he had learned how to gain more soul energy as he was eager to see what happened when he gained 10/10 soul energy, he was guessing his sub-rank would go up as that was how things worked in the books that those nerdy students read.

However, the second one made him contemplate. He wasn't 100 percent sure but as a soul himself he knew the soul contained one's initial potential, memories, and will so the stronger one's soul the more powerful the body and this would result in far more powerful true mana which would be an invaluable help as he would be thrown into the abyss for fucks sake.

And those he chose to continue to absorb souls and like that his vision shifted again and found himself floating above a blood-red lake a few meters away from his spiked form was a crimson-red, wisps of red soul essence flying off him as the imp-like demon rushed at him, flapping it's small, atrophied prehensile wings, it's long arrow-head like tail whipping around behind it, A large menacing grin spread across it's horrid face. 

And despite being in the midst of danger, Michael slowly found one creeping on his own face sharp rows of incisors found within his mouth saw light again.

As he did a loud maddening voice that sounded like a combination of endlessly breaking glass and the scraping of forks on glass plates accompanied by the horrid shriek of a skin-walker.

"I am a soul snatcher" A ring of god-forsaken laughter seeped from his maw, and it was then that the demon felt fear for the first time.