"The cracks show, the veil lifts. Until dawn, the stars show. Until twilight, the red sun shines. Time twists, as the clock reverses. Reality becomes illusion, as flesh is turned inside out. The lands cry out in agony, but none answer; [Shattered rift]."
Seraph punched out towards an hard armored with a quasi-closed fist, causing cracks to appear, and it to tremble while it howled out in agony.
Slowly, Seraph closed the fist with all his might. It was surprising how much magic power he had to put into this, and that's not including the mental energy to keep the spell stable. [Rift strike] took almost no effort to use, if it wasn't strong enough, Seraph would abandon it in an instant.
After he closed his fist completely, the cracks quickly exploded and shattered. And the mushy flesh and the shell of the hard armored shattered along with it, leaving an almost fatal wound. Though it wasn't dead, it was worth the effort to cast [Shattered rift].
A hard armored is; An armadillo monster that has a hard shell but was weak on the inside. It had the highest defense in the Upper Floors, which made it generally impossible for a Level 1 adventurer to single-handedly defeat it in hand-to-hand combat.
That's what the guild says at least, and it wasn't lying. As long as you had something that can ignore the shell and enter the squishy insides, its as good as dead. It was practically already dead, all Seraph had to do now is wait until the body died as every organ in its body was basically useless now.
He sighed with a smile on his face 'Haha!
'
Seraph sighed once more 'Obviously not as much as good as
Though he did not know
Seraph paused, after which he started to finish the job on the hard armoured 'If there's such a strong skill around, shouldn't I just kill it's holder just to be safe? No... That'd be inefficient, if I got the holder under my wing, it'd help when it is time for purification.'
There was the problem that he didn't know when his little, overpowered, normie would arrive. But as long as his plan works, there won't be a problem to pick him up along with another source.
After the body of the hard armour dissapeared, leaving a magic stone, Seraph looked around, there were no monsters left in the nearby area.
Seraph examined his mental state while walking away, it seemed that a good bit of stress had been put onto the newly growing pile, and his magic reserves were almost dry. Though that was because Seraph had forcefully stopped [Shattered rift] from taking more magic energy, there was still a lot more that could be poured in.
But that made sense, messing with space is a high level thing. How could you not be able to pour in more mana than what some level 1 scrub has?
It was great that he could kill monsters on the 12th floor with a single cast, but the fact that there's so much stress coming along with each cast is troublesome. Seraph couldn't just let sins of a long lost age kill another human whenever there was a need to relieve stress.
What if he got caught?
Seraph understood that he was extremely powerful for how high his stats were, if someone with a bunch of C's could go wild on the 12th floor, why would there be a bunch of warnings to not go in without at least a B in everything?
But he wasn't sure if he could silence a level 2 right now, not even mentioning level 3's and higher.
He could be pretty sure if he slew a infant dragon, since they were considered level 2. But he was completely unconvinced that he could do so.
...Well, maybe if the sins of the past helped in grinding he'd be able to slay one in maybe a month. But he wasn't sure if the corrupted part of him would cooperate, he wasn't sure of anything about it.
Today was the first time he'd ever even actively let it do something, and it was still able to voice it's opinion partially right now, it wasn't completely suppressed into it's cage.
Seeing a lone orc walking out of the mist, he pondered for a moment, before he choose to get rid of his doubts, as they were inefficient. Do or die, and he'd rather die that lose efficiency due to his inaction. So a deal with the devil it is!
"What will it take for you to help me grind?" He asked to the open air while conciously loosening the small hole in the seal that he had not yet closed.
A small voice mumbled silently, and then voiced out 'Play?...'
Seraph thought for a moment what it meant, which slowly formed into playing around with the opponent "Yes, I'll allow it, as long as you don't do it for too long."
'...Compound... Bow...' The voice said slowly.
Seraph again tried to understand what it was asking for, he always had problems understanding the emotions of impure beings, especially something so close to the original sin. So disgustingly distorted that an (almost) perfect being such as him was born out of it "Do you mean you want me to make a compound bow?"
'Yes... Foldable...'
"If you agree to help me grind, I'll make you anything you want in place of artificy time." Seraph didn't have to big a problem with this, at least it was still semi-efficient, and he could also use these creations himself. Since they were using the same body.
Though, if this deal didn't make stress go down or make up for the lost time while crafting things for it, this little deal would fall through '...Do it.'
"You'll do it?" Seraph asked while an orc was running at him from the distance.
'Ye.' It voiced out.
Seraph sighed as he again let it out to play, while saying "I'll gift you this orc, try it out." He was honestly concerned if it knew how to fight monsters, he just really couldn't understand it. Some times it has a burst of fear at something inconsequential and then is completely calm when their life is falling apart in front of it.
It silently jumped up and down, trying to get a proper feel for it's new attributes "While you were walking aimlessly in the mist, I was studying the blade."
He took out the filthy and worn ninjato out of it's sheath, and amateurishly swung it around "System, show quest."
[Generating quests for '*Null*'...]
[Dungeon extermination;
The dungeon is a pest that must be exterminated, by violent means.
Goal; exterminate the dungeon.
Reward;
[How to slay your dragon;
Prove your mettle! Bathe in the blood of the ultimate life-form! -'s infant wannebe.
Goal; dispose of an 'Infant dragon'
Reward; +5 to all stats below A-rank, +10 to all stats below B-rank, +10 to all stats below C-rank]
It nodded absent mindedly "While you were thinking about what it would take to kill an infant dragon, I was studying the blade." While still swinging Seraph's sword around, a bit less amateurishly this time. His grip firmer, and his swings cleaner.
[
"While you were savoring the flesh and blood of one of your brethren, I was studying the blade." He sneered at the orc that was getting closer with a tree trunk in it's hand, it was apparently a cannibal, the lowest of the low.
So idiotic and weak that it couldn't even hunt proper prey "While you were wondering what air tastes like, I was studying the blade." His swings became even more proficient in this small time-frame.
The unnamed being didn't know if it was the skill or it's natural talent that was doing it, but it would not complain.
When the orc had finally closed in and struck it's club/tree down "While you were rushing towards me," It said as he stepped to the side and passing the orc "I was studying the blade;"
The impure one smiled arrogantly as it slashed at the orc's achilles heel "[*Teleports behind you*]"
Instead of slashing this time, the sword directly stabbed into the orc's neck while the sinful one latched on to the orc's shoulders. Vaulting with it as his support, when he reached his height, he went from shoulders to head, and used all of his strength, which did not snap it.
So it took out nothing, and forced himself from his upside-down state, into a normal state with a single push, as he then kicked the orc in the nose. From that it bounced back to the ground, now without Seraph's sword.
But it wasn't worried "The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" it had made sure to pierce it's air pipe properly, while also cutting into it's nervous system partially.
It watch expectantly as the orc took a step, and then fell to the ground "Like a house of cards." But sadly, it wasn't dead yet!
So he walked up to the pretty much half-dead orc, and forced his property out of it's filthy body. And slashed with all his might and his newly gained insights.
If the orc's life was like a video game, he might've had a QTE appear infront of him. Maybe something like a 'Last chance' event where he needed to succeed to survive, but sadly...
"You can't escape your destiny!; [No chance in hell!]"
In this little scenario, the QTE dissapeared, and red text appeared. Saying; 'No chance.' with a little red 'X' at the end.
After this little venture, Seraph return, quite amazed at the being's quite rapid adaption to using a sword. Though, if he did it, it'd be quicker. But if it had time to grow and have some practical training, it may be able to be even more proficient in swordsmanship than him, who had been boosted by the system more than 5 times!
[Ninjato mastery (Repeat quest):
Goal; Monsters killed by ninjato 46033/100000
Reward; Increased mastery in the usage of the ninjato.]
Seraph took a step back mentally, the quest considered the sinful one's kill his own...
And the stress storage area of his soul had gotten a lot more space, as if it had gone through spring cleaning...
...This wasn't that bad a deal.
'Now, magic stones!' Seraph still needed magic stones to feed his Empyrean sparks, and to test something else out.
And a bit of extra money didn't hurt anyone...
...If they didn't make it public.