Chapter 14 Reap

Right at that moment, time froze for Lyrian.

He was.... going to die? Here? Like this?

No, there was no way. That couldn't be true. He did so much to get here.

The promises he made to himself to get stronger and the years that he spent training would all be in vain if he were to perish here.

With a surge of ruthless conviction filling his bones, Lyrian grabbed both sides of the wolf's jaw just before it was able to bite down and crush his face.

Its sharp teeth dug into the skin of his palms, but he didn't care. This was a primal cry for survival. Nothing mattered anymore except for getting out alive.

Even with his barely working left arm, he continued to push the maw of the unrelenting beast away from him, his forearm muscles popping out from the exertion.

Finally, with a final burst of energy that ruptured his lungs, he pushed with all of his might, coughing blood from his mouth as he screamed.

The rampaging wolf's jaw was torn in half as Lyrian stood up and threw its body to the side before standing victorious.

*Ding* [Quest: Kill A Direwolf has been completed]

[Quest rewards gained]

[New ability: Creature-link (Ability to create a new creature from the souls of two past creatures that the user has killed]

[Current soul storage: 0/2]

[Hidden quest reward: 1 full he-]

Before Gear could finish talking, Lyrian passed out from exhaustion.

'Shi–'

When he finally woke up after some time, he found himself to be in the exact same position as last time.

'Im... still alive?' These were his first thoughts, knowing that he was bleeding profusely before he passed out, inside and out.

He fully expected not to wake up, but for some reason, he was awake and didn't even feel any pain.

Rubbing his left arm and squeezing his palms, it felt like they hadn't even been scratched.

After taking a deep breath, his lungs and other organs seemed to be intact.

In fact, he had a lot of energy right now, probably even more so than before fighting with the wolf.

A little hesitant, he got up and hopped up and down a few times, and just as he thought, he was light on his feet.

[Since you missed the announcement of the previous quest reward, I will restate that the reward was a full heal]

[Due to your body not being able to survive without it, I was forced to use it automatically]

'I see.'

After this, Lyrian opened up his skills tab to look at the description of the Creature-link ability more thoroughly.

It was an interesting ability, but since the name of the system was "The Creation System", it kind of made sense.

From the "Soul Storage: 0/2", Lyrian saw that he needed to collect two different souls before combining them.

However, that meant that it was only a onetime skill, which slightly confused him.

'Gear... Is this skill able to be used more than once?'

[Yes. After two souls are combined, the soul storage will only have one soul left]

'Doesn't that mean that I will only be able to have two creations at max?'

[Yes. However, with the advancements of power and skill proficiency, this limit will eventually increase]

Lyrian was satisfied with this knowledge, and that's when he noticed the body of the white wolf he killed was still there.

Its blood was still quite fresh, so he must not have passed out for long. However, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to use his new skill.

Although he thought of saving it for something even stronger in the future, there really wasn't anything stronger than a dire wolf in this part of the forest.

And if there was anything stronger, it would be levels above Lyrian, since he barely beat this one that was even weaker than normal dire wolves.

He already reached his current limit in strength, so he knew that he wasn't going to be able to beat another full-power dire wolf any time soon.

He went over to its body and knelt down.

"How do I use it? Do I just say Creature-link in my head?"

[For soul harvesting, you, as the owner of the skill, have the right to name it whatever you please]

"Name it? Hmm..."

ραΠdαsΝοvel.cοm After a few seconds, Lyrian came up with what he thought was a perfect name for soul harvesting.

"Reap."

As soon as he said this, a white orb emerged from out of the wolf's dead body and entered Lyrian's chest.

Automatically, a stream of memories and thoughts pooled in his brain.

Since he held the soul of the creature, he also accessed the knowledge of its previous life.

After this, the body of the wolf disintegrated into ash before eventually disappearing completely.

Lyrian looked up at the sky and noticed that he still had a few hours left before needing to go back home.

So, he decided to cultivate some more back at home.

Recently, something had blocked the entrance to the mana alcove and Lyrian didn't have a clue what it was.

The object that blocked the entrance was bumpy but smooth, but it was almost immovable.

So, for the past few weeks, he had cultivated in the initial small room of the cavern.

Although he could have spent time trying to remove it, he was simply too excited to train for his Dire wolf fight.

Now that he had taken care of that, though, he could focus on getting back down into the mana alcove.

After arriving at the cave, Lyrian lit a torch and approached the weird object.

With the light of the fire, he saw that the surface of it had multiple diamond-shaped patterns littered all over it.

It was black and slightly gray, but extremely durable.

Previously, Lyrian tried to kick it open, but seeing as how that failed, this time, he decided to fully shoulder ram into it.

With one impact, some dust fell from the ceiling and it seemed as though nothing happened, but Lyrian noticed that the object had moved slightly.

He continued to ram into it several more times, before it finally let up and fell down, revealing the inside of the mana alcove.

As soon as Lyrian walked inside, his eyes widened, and his jaw gaped in shock.

'3... 10... 16... 26... 40!?'