Chapter 154 - 153 The Price Of Victory

'Soul Burst and, Supreme Skill Embodiment of Eclipse, Dark Form.'

Activating his soul burst unique skill all of Marcus' stats immediately doubled, and his body started shimmering lightly.

However, this shimmer was soon overwhelmed as Marcus' supreme skill embodiment of eclipse, covered his body in pure darkness with a slight glow of light coming from behind him.

Feeling incredible power coursing through his entire being, Marcus could only remember when he finally achieved combining both of his embodiment unique skills and created the supreme skill embodiment of eclipse.

'It took me months to achieve and now it is the first time I will be able to test out the power I worked so hard to obtain.'

Jared seeing the sudden change in Marcus' demeanor suddenly felt a sense of overpowering fear and instinctively started backing up.

In fact, Jared no longer had the desire to fight and tried to pull the teleportation scroll back out from his robe.

Except as he pulled the scroll out, he watched as his arm suddenly went flying, and Marcus was standing next time him his scythe emitting a dark aura with the outline of a bright light behind it.

Instinctively Jared who had been using Jesnay as a shield held her in front of Marcus hoping he would not attack.

Marcus froze a part of him was still hoping to somehow save Jesany which was why he had not attacked Jared in a vital area.

Thinking at full speed Marcus was going through all of his abilities trying to think of a way to save Jesnay from Jared who was currently using her as a human shield, but found none realizing he would have to kill her as well.

However, as Marcus was steeling himself to kill Jesnay along with Jared whose arm was growing back in its new tumorous fashion, Marcus saw Jesany who was barely conscious give him a sad smile.

She then mouthed the words "save the rest of them" before pointing her fingerless right hand at her head and shotting out the hidden bolt she kept under her sleeve.

Watching the bolt move in slow motion Marcus saw it pierce into Jesnay's head as the last light of life left her eyes.

With tears running down his face Marcus yelled a furious howl and sliced through Jesnay's now dead body along with Jared who was behind her, cleaving both of them in half with one slash.

Jared with a look of disbelief, as his body was falling began screaming, and the foul power he had obtained from the drug surged up again and his body actually began putting itself back together, albeit in a tumorous form.

Marcus surprised that Jared could heal after being cut in half hesitated for a moment as Jared jumped back over a hundred feet and began running away.

Anger washing over him, Marcus was not going to let this man who had caused him so much pain escape, and his form erupted in a massive burst of darkness and light melding together before shooting after Jared.

Jared seeing the impending doom coming for him, in a last desperate measure turned around and cast his strongest spell.

"ZEPHYR BLAST."

Using up all of his mana a colossal ball of compressed wind formed around his tumor ridden arm and blasted out destroying everything in its wake.

Seeing this Marcus cast a combo spell that fused both darkness and light which he could only perform while using his supreme skill.

"Eclipse Meteor."

All of Marcus' swirling raw energy converged around him, turning himself into an unstoppable projectile of light and darkness.

Impacting into Jared's spell, Marcus was held back for just a moment by its power. giving Jared the slightest hope that he could win, before Marcus smashed through his spell overwhelming Jared's and continued hurtling towards him.

BOOM!

A massive explosion of light and darkness that could truly be compared to a meteor impact shook the entire area, and even the barrier that Jared had set up at the start of the battle began to crack under the devastating power.

Leaving a massive crater in the ground where he had impacted, Marcus looked at the remains that were left of Jared which only amounted to little more than a few pieces of bone and his shattered magic staff.

However, as Marcus stared at the pittance of what was left of Jared, he saw what appeared to be a misshapen and discolored magic core.

Reaching down towards this unusual object, the core broke apart and shatter before Marcus could touch it and a small light flew up into the sky and into the horizon.

'That was weird, but whatever, I do not have time to worry about that. I need to, gahhhh.'

The battle now over Marcus' strength began to recede as the backlash of abusing his unique and supreme skills started to affect him.

Falling to his knees Marcus felt like his soul was falling apart, and he soon realized that this was not just in his mind as his body looked like it was sweating but was actually melting.

Collapsing onto his side, Marcus felt that his mind was going black and a feeling he must have felt before was overcoming him.

'Am I going to die again. I was brought to another world just to end up like this? No, I have to fight, I have gone through so much already and have gained too much, I refuse to start over again.'

Using all of his will power Marcus tried to keep himself together, but if spirt was enough to overcome every hardship, no one would ever suffer.

Marcus feeling his mind slipping into darkness, felt his eyes go heavy as he had pushed himself well beyond his limits, and as the last moments of consciousness left him, he thought he saw the figure of a beautiful blonde girl walking towards him.

…

Waking up with a start Marcus found himself in an unfamiliar bed, inside a large room.

However, before he could take stock of where he was an incredible pain assaulted his body.

Feeling like he was being crushed, Marcus began convulsing on the bed screaming a blood curdling cry.

Tearing the bed apart as he tried to quell the pain he was feeling, it was not long before Marcus felt the pain start to slowly subside, as he felt a warm pulse in his chest.

The pulse of warmth continued to spread out over his body until the pain settled down to a dull soreness.

'What the hell happened, and where am I. Last thing I remember was defeating Jared and then collapsing. I was pretty sure that I was going to die or even worse have my soul completely disperse. But somehow, I ended up in an unfamiliar room, still alive, and my body has a warmth pulsing through it. Wait maybe I did die again and have been transferred to another world. No that is stupid, if that were the case why would I still have my same form. I need to check my status and see what is going on.'

"Status."

Name: Marcus Ferrous/Irene Geist

Age: 28/20

Race: Unbound Ghost (Great Spirt of Light and Darkness)

Title: Baronetess

Level: 36

Status Conditions: Soul Damage Maximum, Soul Integration, Spirit Gem (Mythic)

HP: (7400/7400)-370/370

MP: (3400/3400)-170/170

STR: 324 (+3) (-311)

AGL: 318 (+19) (-320)

VIT: 307 (+3) (-294)

INT: 337 (+3) (-323)

SPR: 426 (+4) (-408)

Stat Points: 80

Skill Points: 45

Supreme Skills: Embodiment of Eclipse

Unique Skills: Personal Status, ##u#####o##, Master of Soul and Body, Soul Burst, Embodiment of Light, Embodiment of Darkness

Skills: Medium Item Box, Lesser Regeneration Lvl 2, Digging Lvl 3, Fighting Lvl 4, Magic Circulation Lvl 4, Iron Magic Lvl 5, Disassembly Lvl 4, Stealth Lvl 3, Lightning Magic Lvl 4, Creature Appraisal Lvl 4, Fire Magic Lvl 4, Danger Sense Lvl 4, Darkvision Lvl 3, Scythemanship, Superior Lvl 5, Mana Regeneration Lvl 4, Speed Burst Lvl 4, Mana Body Lvl 4, Powerful Slash Lvl 4, Physical Resistance Lvl 4, Heighten Spells Lvl 4, Forge Lvl 4, Trap Sensing Lvl 2, Dark Magic Lvl 4, Light Magic Lvl 4, Driving Lvl 2, Cooking Lvl 3, Cleaning Lvl 1

Blessing of Iron, Exalted Blessing of Light, Exalted Blessing of Darkness

Race Abilities: Invisible, Ethereal, Chill Zone, Float, Possession (Limited), Undying

Specter Powers: Ghost Sounds, Spectral Arm, Phantom Pressure, Life Drain, Tendrils of Shadows

Looking through his status, Marcus first noticed that his age as Irene had increased meaning that it was either the day of, or sometime after when her twentieth birthday would have been.

Except Marcus knew that from the day he had beaten Jared there was still over two weeks until Irene's birthday, meaning he had been unconscious for at least that long.

However, as he scrolled down, seeing his status condition left him completely stunned.

'Soul Damage Maximum. 'Your soul has taken an unbearable amount of damage and can no longer support your existence. All stats are cut to a twentieth of their normal value and will continue to decrease until your soul ceases to exist.'

Reading the details of his soul damage maximum, Marcus began to panic. He thought he was going to slowly fade into nonexistence but nothing else seemed to be happening and that was when he noticed the condition next to soul damage maximum.

'Soul Integration, Spirit Gem (Mythic). 'User is currently absorbing the power of a spirit gem (Mythic) that is used to strengthen the stats of spiritual beings. As a side effect this highest quality spirit gem is offsetting the loss of stats from soul damage maximum.'

Looking it over carefully Marcus was able to find that he was still currently losing stats at about one a second but the spirit gem that he could now see imbedded in his chest was raising his stats at the same rate.

'Fuck this is not good, I do not know how long it will take me to recover from this soul damage but as soon as the spirit gem runs out, I could be in trouble.'

Looking over the rest of his status carefully Marcus soon found that he had leveled up and gained twenty-four more skill points.

Opening up the skill list menu Marcus scrolled down to one of the many skills he had marked in his mind to buy later and purchased it for the expensive price of forty-two skill points.

However, as soon as he obtained the skill, Marcus felt its effects immediately as the power of his new skill soul regeneration began to take action.

Watching his status for around a minute and noticing that his soul regeneration was now allowing his stats to recover, Marcus let out a sigh of relief.

'Looks like at the current rate it will be around three days or so until my stats get back up to full, though that is only as long as this spirit gem keeps working. Speaking of which where the hell did this thing come from. I certainly did not have it and I doubt that one of the Eternal Queens would have something like this.'

While thinking about where the spirit gem came from, Marcus was soon interrupted as the door to the room he was in burst open, and he saw the five surviving members of Eternal Queens along with Baron Jasper and his two Knights Xander, and Vincent.