Chapter 54: The Painted World of Ariamis.

[YOU DIED]

...

"Ow fuck. It feels like Gwyn himself hit me upside the head with a goddam building."

I was currently laying down on the floor next to the bonfire with the corpse of the Darkmoon knightess sitting in the corner. Although I didn't really plan on killing her those plans changed quickly once she lunged at me after I woke up next to the bonfire. Safe to say though that after my metamorphosis, killing her was incredibly easy.

As I was laying down some humanities floated by right next to me. Chuckling wryly internally I reached my hand out and stroked their heads. They felt like condensed gas bordering on liquid. But they seemed to like the gesture as they snuggled against my hand.

"Thanks, guys, I couldn't have done it without you."

I meant that, I didn't know how in the everloving fuck I managed to pull shit like that off. But considering every soul and humanity in my inventory is missing I see how. All of them were turned into energy to fuel my attacks. And without the Humanings(I shall call them that from now on) keeping my body at least functional.

And even though it had been hours since I murked Ornio and died, my body still ached like hell. And once again my armor was reduced to little more than scraps, I would have to do extensive maintenance on that later. But now I should really check what happened to my body after that whole ordeal.

I brought out a mirror from my inventory and disrobed completely, staring at the mirror and observing my body.

"Nice."

I now stood at around what I guess is 196cm. My body looked like it was hand sculpted by god himself, perfectly symmetrical and balanced. All of my scars went away too, but only to be replaced by new ones. Though this time instead of varied ones these were all either giant gashes or patterns like shattered glass. Thankfully none of my face.

"Yesss, baby!"

My hair was no longer white! Somehow. Instead, it was now pitch-inky black. And it now reached my shoulders. It was so black that light didn't even reflect off of it giving it no shine. On that same note, I also looked noticeably more handsome.

It made sense, considering I had become what is literally the peak of human potential in every way possible. Now I looked like an 8/10 even when I'm not groomed properly.

But having my face out in the open still felt weird so I slapped my helmet back on. Or whatever was left of it anyway. Shrugging I cast repair 20 times to get my armor back.

Now then, time to tackle the meat of the problem. My newest most distinct skill.

{Umbra}

This skill was so simple and so complicated at the same time that it gave me headaches.

Basically, it allowed me to manipulate darkness. But didn't at the same time.

But not just simple darkness. The moment I got the skill and the Dark Soul, a lot of information about it entered my brain. And the darkness of the Dark Soul wasn't simply darkness.

Very easy to understand right!?

The darkness that Umbra controls is what I like to call "Primordial Darkness". It basically encompassed, space, gravity, and weight. Which made it understandably very hard to control. But the amount of potential it had was simply mindboggling.

For example, I set an apple next to the bonfire and stretched my hand out. Then focused on bending darkness to my will, influencing the space around me. After a bit of concentration and a ludicrous amount of focus, the apple got covered in a black sheen and floated toward my hand.

So yeah, I can also apply it like telekinesis, a very shitty telekinesis. But telekinesis regardless. Anyway, now that I have the... Lordvessel...

Fuck.

What the hell happened to the lordvessel?

I immediately jumped back onto my feet and started rushing to the cathedral. If I lost that thing I would be capital F fucked.

...

Good news! The lordvessel still exists!

Bad News. It took me 8 fucking hours to find it because some asshole decided to maim the entire cathedral.

It wasn't even in the fucking cathedral! It fell into a nearby street thanks to the explosions! If it wasn't for the signatures it emanated in soul sight I don't think I would've found it. At least without losing what little sanity I had ripped out of the tight grips of hollowing

Thank fuck the thing is borderline invincible or I would've snapped right then and there. Thankfully I managed to retrieve the fancy plate that allowed me to teleport. And surprisingly or unsurprisingly, I didn't find any Darkmoon peeps trying to kill me.

But it made sense, I wouldn't want to challenge the immortal man that can spontaneously create a 30-meter-long sword of annihilating flame. Anyway, now that I had gotten the L vessel It was time to head into the painting.

...

I was standing in front of the painting. For some reason, it felt incredibly important that I went in there yet I could barely remember anything about it. When I tried to recall about the painted world, all that I could remember was the vague outline of a big girl wielding a scythe surrounded by falling snow.

Hollowing really, really sucked. The feeling of losing parts of yourself every time you died felt incomprehensible. Not in the good way. That is also why I have memory problems, because of fucking hollowing. Whatever memories go when I die seemed to have been random too. Seeing as I can't remember the faces of my parents nor the college I went to.

Thankfully that problem seems to have subsided after I awakened my darksoul. So my immortality has no drawbacks other than being immortality which will probably suck very hard way later on.

Shaking my head to clear the useless thoughts, I put my hand on the painting with the doll in my pocket and I was sucked into the world.

A cold and desolate place. That's what I sensed from here. A place for outcasts. Shunned by the outside world. Filled with "undesirables" yet another shitty example of Gwyn's age flame.

This place was haunting yet beautiful at the same time. A snowy wonderland filled with pussed hollows infected with some kind of disease, crow demons, and undead dogs. None of them posed any threat yet their existences were still fairly disturbing.

Seeing more of this place restored more memories. Allowing me to remember details previously forgotten. And damn did that make this place depressing.

This place was basically a shunning ground. A place where the cowardly gods threw whatever posed even the slightest threat to their rule as well as undesirable things to this place. How filthy. I'll be caught dead before I burn myself to perpetuate this garbage.

And I will never be caught dead so that means I won't be lighting that flame, ever.

The loot was good, I guess. There were things here that I would be excited about before but now are borderline useless to me. I was far too strong for any loot that wasn't incredibly unique.

At least the enemies around gave me the chance to practice umbra so it wasn't a complete waste of time. I made some techniques. Most of them are incredibly gruesome but effective.

Armageddon blade helped immensely with the pus hollows. Since the pus inside got evaporated before coming in contact with me which was appreciated The crow demons were annoying but helped me develop a new technique.

{Fall}

It took me around a few hours to figure out the exact mechanics but now I could increase gravity potency on an area or an individual. Making them fall to the ground. Perfect for enemies that rely on flight as their gimmick.

The only things of real interest here that I would say were the dark ember and the 'Vow of Silence' which made people shut up. Preventing most from casting magic. And the dark ember allowed me to forge occult weapons.

Thanks to this place I also developed the cold resistance skill. I noticed that I didn't really get it here even though it should've been frigid, But then I noticed the reason I haven't been acquiring that skill.

The Inferno Cape.

I had realized that I hadn't really observed what changed from the hellkite cape. It just felt so natural to me that I didn't even question its existence. So now I decided to use inspect on it.

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[Inferno Cape]

An ever-burning cape woven from the hide of the hellkite drake destined to burn forever by the blade that was forged to destroy the world. Yet its flames do not burn, at least not its user.

Options:

-Lesser Fire Immunity: Immune to all flames below a certain threshold. All flames above that threshold are weakened.

-Greater Thermal Fluctuation Resistance: Wearing this cape renders one highly resistant to change in temperature. Even a cold wasteland will feel like you are snuggled up in a blanket next to the fireplace.

-Greater Fire Affinity: When wearing this cape the power of all fire abilities are boosted considerably.

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That shit is busted. And is also the reason why my fire resistance and cold resistance haven't leveled up. So I had to begrudgingly remove it to level up cold resistance.

And when I have stuff like that, it makes other loot look kinda meaningless. I can just make better stuff myself half the time. And with my absurd stats and abilities most normal weapons will snap in half within a few strikes.

Other than the mediocre loot and disgusting enemies this place was actually pretty fun and relaxing. The calm silence as the snow fell was almost therapeutic.

And considering I hadn't seen snow in more than a year or two it felt pretty weird to see it again. But alas, all good things had to come to an end. I could stay here for longer but I had shit to do. So went up to the fog gate.

I don't know what is past it but I am confident in my ability to be able to kill them, it would be difficult for even Nito to send me back to the bonfire at this point. So with little reluctance, I put my hand up to the fog and dispersed it.

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