Chapter 6

  Less Than A Legion

  Enraged spirits charged forward causing a tension of fear to rise in me, but only for a second.

  I hated being afraid. I hated that I still got jumpy when I saw ghosts, despite it literally being part of my awakened bloodline. And most of all, I hated feeling weak due to my fears.

  That was why, rather than running, as my instincts screamed for me to do, I stopped and composed myself. I could have taken this time to reach down and grab more weapons to infuse with power and throw at the enemy, but instead I had to spend that time calming my nerves and focusing my resolve to stay.

  Looking down, I saw a long thin piece of bent metal rebar. Not even thinking twice about how bad of a weapon rusted rebar is, not even thinking about the flakes of copper that were already peeling off and molding to my sweaty hand. Okay, actually, I did think about the coppery orange flakes for a moment, but I quickly dismissed that as the first few spirits got closer.

  That’s when I acted on instinct and began infusing Mana for my Soul Devour Skill directly into the rebar. The first infusion coated the area where my hands gripped. The second went a foot up, the third stretched to the end, and finally the fourth provided an outer layer that I knew would slowly do burning soul damage, but only at my hand area.

  Thwack!

  I swung the metal rod in the air, lashing out and striking at the wave of incoming spirits. All the while I continued to pour in more and more mana.

  Thud.

  There was a brief resistance, as the spirits made solid contact with the infused end of the shaft. No damage was done, at least none that I could see, but it was enough to energy to push the monsters back, if barely.

  Which was good, as it gave me time to continue infusing charged Mana directly into the rebar. An act that was needed not a moment later as I once again began swinging the large, and cumbersome weapon wildly through the air.

  Pop, pop, sploosh.

  With one swing I saw a wave of spirits are sliced through like I was using a light saber against a wave of generic troopers. Which in a way feels like an apt description of what is happening.

  I swing until the bent metal pole glows dull, which apparently is my sign to start infusing more Mana into the pole. The longer this goes on the more energy I feel being wasted. While this method is more effective than a straight one for one as my fists would get me, it is still draining, particularly as my goal was never to face all of the spirits. Instead, my goal was slightly deeper.

  I kept backing up. First, backing up kept me from being surrounded by the spirits. Second, backing up forced the wave of spirits to follow me, and subsequently get further and further away from the rift.

  Right now, these spirits weren’t actually deadly. Yes, if left to fester around someone without a Spirit Devour type Skill, the spirits would eventually drain the life force away from that person and the surrounding area, but that took time.

  That is why, I used this moment to lure as many of the spirits away as possible. As this wouldn’t be a battle I could win all in one go, my Mana pool was too miniscule for something like that. Instead, I would use this as a training ground.

  Sweat.

  I swung until my arms were sore, until I sweat so much that I felt my clothes beginning to stick to my skin. Yet, I continued to fight on.

  As long as an evolved spirit didn’t show up or manifest from one of the gathered spirits, I would be fine. This was a war of attrition. I already had it in my mind that I would come back. I would come back for as may times as it took to truly cleanse this area. When it came to battling spirits, it was a test of wills and stubbornness, and I was just as stubborn as they came.

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  Cra-fizzle-pop!

  Of course, that is right when old Murphy’s Law had to come into play. For that was the moment that a tiny pine spirit, appeared. Pine spirit isn’t the exact name of these things, but more of my personal name for them on the account that they are small, covered in projectile quills and remind me of porcupines, thus the pine name.

  The creatures are a menace, not only to me, but also their own kind as they fire first and look for a target second. Which would sound great, as they end up destroying so many of the basic spirits that their actions would almost be a welcome addition. There is just one problem. Well multiple problems, first their attacking their own, while trying to take down an actual threat to spirits is recognized by their system as a valid attack. Meaning, that even if they kill one of their own fellow spirits, so long as the attack was done in an attempt to kill an actual threat, they are able to level from those kills. This is why you can often find pine spirits at the very center of large clusters like this.

  Fwt-fwt-fwt.

  I feel like an 80s action star with all of the razor thin pine spirit needles that I take to the chest and face. Now unlike the regular spirits that will just drain a regular human, pine spirits are a different breed entirely. The needles are both corporeal, meaning they can pierce flesh, and worse they have a nerve toxin at the base of them that is deadly to most humans.

  Sizzle.

  Just having the needles pierce my skin is enough for me to feel my awakened bloodline sparking to life. See while this spirit venom might be deadly to most humans, I have the ancient blood of the DiVoratore running through my veins. Which despite how far the DiVoratore bloodline has seemed to have fallen in recent history, the bloodline itself seems to have been forged on the backs of destroying spirits of all kinds. Even the annoying, and venomous, pine spirits.

  Pain infused ecstasy.

  What happens next is hard to describe for someone not of the line, but the thrill of spirit venom entering your body, only to be immediately neutralized and then ultimately infused directly into the bloodline is intoxicating. Of course, this is when the system lets me know that I can apparently learn new Skills.

  This would be considered an “in the wild skill” which can often follow mainstream versions of the same Skill at the noted rarity, or it can manifest and change based on the way the owner of this Skill grows with and learns from their Skill.

  That said, I am not a masochist, and despite having four free Skill slots, I immediately reject the idea of trying to inflict myself with a hundred levels of Pain, in order to unlock something.

  With that option dismissed, I begin focusing on what my body does naturally well. That is taking the highly potent spirit venom that is coursing in my body now and converting it to Mana. This is often called the DiVoratore high by members of the family, and is often how I manage to get my second and sometimes even third wind in long battles.

  Of course, this is also the first time that I have both had high enough Attributes to earn a better Skill rating, while also having a completely free Skill slot, which is how I finally got offered the chance to learn my first Epic Level Skill.

  Seeing that description I paused.

  A big mistake in battle.

  Fwt-fwt-fwt.

  As I am once again pelted by yet another barrage of Pine spirit quills. I can almost feel the toxicity being too much for my body to handle, as the world suddenly begins to spin. That’s when I realize I either need to step up to the challenge, or run.

  Realizing I’m not going to quit so easily, I accept the Skill, allowing me the ability to minimize my system prompts and focus fully on the fight.

  There it is, my cheat sheet, and a sign of what I need to do, in order to level up my new Epic rarity Skill. Just gain one point of Mana per level in the skill. I honestly didn’t know what to make of that Skill description as it seemed somewhat easy, until you realize that I have to get injected with so much foreign Mana to level this up that the process will kill me if I am not careful. Also, I am not certain about what that Cost means, I might have to ask the Madame about that.

  Speaking of, where is she? I do a quick scan, only to see that the Madame is still here, though she is clearly staying away from all of the action and not coming near enough to be pricked by Pine needles.

  I don’t blame her.

  As our eyes meet, I try to get a gauge of her. Will she step in? Apparently not if she is that far behind. Perhaps she just wants to see how good of an investment she made.

  Fwt-fwt-fwt.

  And like that I take a barrage of spirit venom coated pine needles to the left side of my face. I deserved that, losing focus.

  Dizzy.

  The spirit venom is now being supercharged in my system, but that is good as it just gives me more energy to convert and level off of. Realizing that there is no help, and I am only wasting a golden opportunity to level my newfound Skill, I turn back and start attacking.

  Normally my reaction would be to target the annoying pine spirit that has targeted me three times thus far, and is seemingly getting more and more accurate with each strike. But that would defeat the purpose of leveling up my new Epic rarity Skill. A Skill that just might kill me, if I don’t take it seriously enough.

  Thrum.

  Though I don’t have time to think about anything else, as I just take the rapidly converting Mana from my bloodstream and pipe it straight into my handy bent metal rebar and begin going to town against these spirits.

  Pop-op-pop.

  Zagging to the right, I take on a swath of spirts from the front, while my friend the pine spirit begins striking them from their blind spots. In the process Piney, my name for this annoying pine spirit, ends up proving another one of Murphy’s Laws correct, that one being friendly fire is the most accurate, as piney is now putting up kill numbers that are putting me to shame.

  Still, this is a battle to the death, and not one designed to reward the one of us with the most accolades.

  Zag further to the right, swing, repeat.

  This is my life right now, and for the moment I need to prove to the Blooms that I am worth the investment that they made, for the time being at least.

  Besides, now that I am effectively leveling up twice, once from killing the spirits, and another from converting Mana from the same group of spirits, this whole attack pattern just got a whole lot more interesting.

  Fwt-fwt-fwt.

  And bloody.