Chapter 219 - 218 Time To Head Back

< Soul Devour >

-The user has the ability to devour the souls of those they kill, obtaining a slight bit of their power and nourishing their own soul. 

-The user has the ability to devour their own soul for a temporary sharp increase in power. 

-Compatible skill detected, with the combination of Master of Soul and Body, user may take the form of entities whose souls have been devoured by this skill. Note that the user's stats may change depending on the form taken but may not exceed the maximum limit.

After reading through the description of his once sealed unique skill, Marcus suddenly received another message that said.

'Warning! Overuse of this skill can lead to the destruction or warping of the user's soul. Use sparingly and cautiously.'

Once he had finished reading the warning on his soul devour skill Marcus wanted to test the ability out but also was almost too afraid to use it.

He could vividly remember when he acquired the skill while fighting Ander and it had given him almost a euphoric like felling as he devoured his own soul for power.

'At least now I know how I ended up in such a sorry state afterwards.'

Taking a couple of minutes to calm down, Marcus decided to activate soul devour for just a second and then turn it off.

'Here goes nothing.'

Activating the second ability of his soul devour unique skill, Marcus felt an exhilarating rush of power course through him and he felt as if he was capable of doing anything.

In fact, the increase in his power and the feelings that came with it nearly made him forget to turn the power off on time, but Marcus still managed to control himself and after one second deactivated his unique skill.

With his skill now turned off again Marcus opened his status and saw that his spirit stat had lowered by a few points but thanks to his soul regeneration they were already going back up.

'Hm, I would say eleven seconds is probably the max I can go with it for now. Any more would put my spirit stat dangerously low, better safe than sorry.'

Having finished up his experiment with the second and what he assumed to be far more dangerous ability for his unique skill, Marcus looked over his normal skills and found that a few of them had increased in level.

'Magic circulation finally hit level five… wait maybe now I could.'

Looking out at the pool of water in front of him Marcus focused, remembering the times when he had extended his mana and he found it much easier to do now.

Then he imagined the mana being cut off from him and flying forward.

BOOM!

A blast of mana fired off from Marcus and into the pond in front of him, causing an explosion that was followed by a spray of water.

A bit surprised that it actually worked Marcus tried again to make sure it was not a fluke, this time aiming for better control.

Focusing on his mana, Marcus separated a bead like amount and sent it flying until it hit the pool of water and caused a little splash.

'And now I have another new weapon to add to my arsenal.'

Quite pleased that he had finally overcome the hurdle of firing off his mana, Marcus had a bright smile on his face.

Having finished inspecting his status and unsealed unique skill, Marcus turned towards his stat points and distributed them with twenty-eight points to each of his physical stats and thirty-six points to both intelligence and spirit.

With that done Marcus moved over to his sixty skill points and looked around his skills for a while but ultimately decided to save them for now.

'Now I suppose I should head back to the celebration now.'

Heading back over to where the celebration was taking place, Marcus found that it was already starting to wind down, and so Marcus began looking for Lilia and Mrazivý when the new leader of the beasts approached him.

"There you are Irene. I know that this may be presumptuous for me to ask after all you have already done, but a number of beasts that fought in the battle today have received injuries that we cannot fully heal. Would you mind doing what you did before and help those that have been crippled."

Sighing Marcus told the crimson furred ape that he would do it tomorrow, though Marcus was definitely not looking forward to it since it meant a world of pain for him.

Luckily after giving the leader of the beasts his confirmation, Marcus was able to go and find Mrazivý and Lilia before heading back to their tents to rest.

…

"Lilia keep your guard up another one is coming from the right."

Currently Marcus was watching over Lilia as she cleared out a nest of goblins.

None of them were particularly strong except for their leader which was an evolved hobgoblin but still they were no match for Lilia and her beast companions.

Fighting alongside her Aurelia and Zareen were shredding most of the weaker goblins while Lilia was engaged with their leader, though every now and then a random goblin would go after Lilia making it difficult to finish off the hobgoblin.

"Expanded Force."

Finishing the chant for one of her tier three force magic spells, a burst of pure force emanated from around Lilia killing all of the goblins around her and sending the hobgoblin flying back with heavy injuries.

She then rushed in and delivered a number of devastating blows to the near dead hobgoblin beating it to a pulp.

After that Lilia and her beast companions finished off the rest of the goblins before coming over to where Marcus was and sitting down.

"Congratulation on reaching level twenty-five Lilia."

Marcus clapped Lilia on the shoulder and praised her for her achievement before looking towards her beast companions and saying, "And thank the two of you for keeping my sister safe."

The two of them then gave off angry growls towards Marcus obviously not wanting his praise.

Even after being fed the fruit of cognizance and gaining awareness the two of them still hated Marcus.

Luckily, they still did not know how to speak, nor did they have a skill like telepathy so the only one that could understand them was Lilia.

Of course, the two of them had gotten pretty close to Lilia over the past few days and had come to accept her as their master.

"Now why do you all not take a break while we wait for Blitz and Roxene to come back."

Taking out a large drill from his item box, Marcus began cooking something special to eat for Lilia to celebrate her accomplishment of reaching level twenty-five.

As Marcus was cooking along, he noticed a pair of beasts running towards him and saw the Blitz and Roxene had returned.

"Hey, you finally made it to level nine good job Roxene and thanks for taking Blitz with you and getting him to level thirty-four."

'Of course, I must make sure that mine followers are not lagging behind. Now I do not see any of my usual meat cooking right now so could you put some on for me.' Roxene said with her usual haughty attitude.

Giving Roxene a smile Marcus pulled out what was the last bit of puff cow meat he had and threw it onto the grill before turning towards Blitz and filling a bowl with natural tressures for him to eat.

After everyone was done eating, Marcus looked out towards them all and said, "Well it is time that we head back to Lethallan now. We have had a good training session, but I am sure we could all use a break and I need to prepare for my expedition to fight the boss with Jarek."

Having spent the last few days in the dungeon training it was now time for them to head back.

Everyone had made great strides in leveling up during this time except for Marcus. 

After fighting the demon and reaching level forty he found that other than the strongest beasts and monsters nothing was able to give him much experience.

So, Marcus had spent this time training and perfecting his skills and testing out the abilities of his soul devour unique skill.

He had found that eating the soul of a living creature caused him to experience a bit of their lives and emotions.

Depending on how strong the creatures' egos were he could start to become effected by them and he knew that overusing this ability could cause him to lose himself and go insane.

Luckily the effect was not anywhere near as strong as when he became one with the fragment of Irene's soul, so as long as he did not devour a bunch of souls in quick succession, he would probably be okay.

"Okay I guess it is time to go, everyone hope on."

Marcus' form then began to shift and enlarge as his body began growing at an exponential rate until it took the form of a huge white bird of the epic grade called a caladrius.

This was one of the beasts and monsters that Marcus had devoured the soul of, and he had specially targeted it for its ability to fly fast and for long distances.

Once everyone got onto his back and were stable, Marcus began running and flapping his wings before achieving take off and flying high into the air heading back towards the intelligent beast's domain so that they could say goodbye before heading out of the dungeon.