Chapter 85: Squid

"Yin spear" saying the word, a dark spear materialized within Cylius's hand as he thrust forward, piercing the hard shell of the crab. Blue blood gushed forward as the crab fell limp on the ground. 

The ground was filled with such crabs all over, numbering up to a few hundred. 

"Finally done" heaving a sigh of relief, Cylius struck his spear into the ground to use as a support and lie. 

Lying down, he could see the night sky that was filled with numerous stars that shone brightly. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

Extending his hands, Cylius guided all the carcasses to enter a spatial hole which could basically count as his mouth. After devouring all of it, Cylius naturally felt a feeling of fullness as he felt his body shaking from joy. 

As expected, soon, all of the crabs had been devoured by him. The essence and its meat went to his physical body, the spiritual energy went to his core, and the few souls he had captured had been divided into two portions. One for experimentation and the other for devouring. 

The essence and its meat were first refined by the spatial hole before going into his body to be refined. Cylius could feel the immense amount of energy entering his body as it strengthened it. 

In his chest, it was a hollow space containing a small dark core. It was completely black in color as it seemed to be an anomaly of the world, constantly sucking in energy from its surroundings. Despite its small size, the power it held was immense.

Once the spiritual energy went into his chest, it was attracted by the core as it slowly went into it before merging with the core itself. 

After that was the souls of the crabs. He stored half of them in a wooden box he got and devoured the other half. His soul grew tentacles from itself as it used the tentacles to capture the souls. 

Not to mention that souls wouldn't have much intelligence after separating from their body, the crabs had weak soul strength, to begin with. So they didn't have much resistance when the tentacles captured and delivered them to the soul of Cylius. 

They could only get devoured by Cylius. 

After devouring them, Cylius felt refreshed as his mind began to clear up. Regular people would've had their perception and comprehension boosted but since Cylius was already extraordinary in those aspects, it didn't boost them.

It boosted the quality of his soul nonetheless. 

[Host has absorbed 210 Lined Blue Crabs. Beginning transmission of data...]

[Race trait discovered: Minor ice manipulation lv.1 - Water regeneration lv.2]

[+52.5 spiritual energy]

[+1 vitality]

[+3.5% core completion. Total amount: 4.01%]

A series of notifications appeared before Cylius's eyes as he sorted out the information. He had added this function yesterday when he was going away from the battle. It seemed convenient and it also helped him sort the information easier and also faster. Since he would sometimes confuse himself with the information he had acquired.

He could also convert his various stats into numbers which was a huge help to him. 

With his own mind, Cylius was sure that he could also do the same since the status originated from him but remembering them was hard. He would just end up mixing them up. 

The status was based on a part of his mind that worked separately from the rest. Within this part, there will only be information regarding status. The various details and information about himself, his surroundings, and other creatures. 

Retracting his yin spear back to his body, he went to look for more monsters to prey on. Although it was dangerous here, the harvest was bountiful too. He had found five groups just today. 

Three of them were led by third-tier Lined Blue Crabs and one of them was fighting with a creature of the third-tier that seemed to be feasting upon them. 

They all were somehow close to a third-tier so Cylius didn't try to fight them at all. Instead, he went to hunt a group that seemed to have been separated from their original group. 

The gains from this was truly massive. Not only did he build a portion of his core, he was also able to earn a full point of vitality. 

.....

The next day. 

"Gotcha" saying this, Cylius jumped from the tree he was sitting on and took a bite of the apple in his hand. After landing, he immediately started running as he threw the remains of the apple away. His speed was fast as it quickly turned into a blur before disappearing.

A hundred kilometers away south from Cylius, just bordering the sea was a massive army of crabs fighting with a group of birds. The battle seemed to have continued for some time as he could see quite an amount of corpses within the area. 

In the center of the battle was a single crab fighting with a bird. Those two of them seemed to be exceptionally large and unique as some of the runes on their bodies appeared bizarre.

The crab was over ten meters tall with a menacing aura and ten eyes overseeing the entire field. On its body were strange lines that seemed to be twisting whenever the crab used water. Just seeing those lines would make a person feel as if they were getting sucked into a vortex. 

Below the giant crab was a giant form of water that seemed to be supporting the crab as it followed the crab's orders. 

Above the crab, in the sky, was a large bird that seemed to distinctly resemble a heron. Its size was massive as it had a wingspan of 30 meters with a giant body suitable for it.

Both of them had the rune comprehension of water as now, the fight was determined by who has comprehended more. 

All lifeforms stayed away from the battle between those two, giving them a large space to fight. 

While in the air, the bird suddenly disappeared. Not being able to find its opponent, the crab could only raise its pinchers and cover itself with a water armor. 

One second... two seconds... right from the third second, the faint figure of a giant bird appeared as it immediately dashed forward to peck the crab with its beak. The crab suddenly seemed to sense something as a concentrated water shield immediately got up when the bird appeared. 

The beak collided with the shield as a strange sound was heard. It sounded as if a hard material had been thrown into the water but without the sound of a splash. It sounded deep. 

Although it was able to defend, the shield wasn't able to persist for long as it soon gave in to the bird. The beak didn't get obstructed by anything before attacking the crab.

"Crisp" the sound of the carapace breaking was heard as a piece of it fell down. 

Right as the attack succeeded the bird continued with another. This time, two white bones cam out from its long neck, looking like a beaker that was horizontal. It immediately tried to grab the crab and lift it but was met with its pinchers. 

The strong pinchers of the crab immediately exerted force as it tried to break the sudden bones that came out. 

.....

'The battle between two third-tiers... from my observation, it seems that if the runes they have comprehended are similar, then they would be likely to fight immediately to absorb the other's rune. 

It also seems that if the runes they have comprehended are similar, then they would somehow negate each other, making it dependant on their physiques. Of course, if there is a large difference in the conversion rate, then one would completely suppress the other...' as he hid under a rock, Cylius continuously made notes about the battle. 

He needed to take this chance and fully observe these two's battle. After all, it wasn't every day that one would be able to see two third-tiers battling. 

He had observed five fights between third-tiers until now which three of them happened within this beach. When he first saw the negation and the aggressive behavior of these monsters when they fought each other, he was kinda suspicious about whether it was a situation that happened in common or it was a unique circumstance. 

Even with his perception and analytical skills, he wasn't so sure at the first time but after witnessing it twice, he was able to confirm it. 

Just as the fight was getting intense and it was a moment where one wrong move could end the match, a surprising thing happened. 

Two giant tentacles suddenly appeared and caught both the crab and the bird! The crab and the bird couldn't even resist as they were pulled into the water. It seemed that they were unable to even let out a sound not to mention struggling or hoping to escape.

[Dangerous lifeform nearby!]

[Danger level: 7. A second stage third-tier runic lifeform]

Seeing the notification, Cylius missed a heartbeat as his pupils shrunk in size.

To advance from the second-tier into the third-tier, one would have to do three things. First, completely comprehend a rune, build core, and then inscribing the rune onto the core. 

As we know, we humans lacked cores from birth. To gain extraordinary power, we must refine the genes of monsters. Although they are a huge help in the first stages, they are still considered foreign objects nonetheless. Therefore, we would have to remove them from our body and soul in order to advance further as they would block our paths soon. 

So starting from the second-tier, we start to make preparations for building our gene. First, we build our core which would later be used as our genes. 

Although they are indeed powerful, they are nothing compared to the mystical powers the genes have. So we introduce another thing into this. The runes. 

Containing immense powers, they are considered the secrets of the world. Humanity has been researching them from the beginning they got genes but they were unable to fully comprehend them and make machines inscribe and use runes.

'Only sentient lifeforms could use and comprehend runes' this was the conclusion they had in the end.

So we inscribe the mysterious runes onto our core in attempts to create something that could rival a gene. It remotely resembled a gene but it was only remote and the power it could unleash wasn't much compared to the genes. 

The runes and the core were separate things after all. Even if they were inscribed onto the other, they were separate things and couldn't achieve perfect combination, the state of being one.

So starting from the third-tier, we start to combine them into one existence, creating the domain. One of the requirements of advancing into a fourth-tier was this. 

Monsters that are in this phase, creating domain would be considered as a first stage while those that have created their domain and entered the second phase of soul and body refinement would be considered as a second stage. 

They had to remove the impurities from their body and soul so they would have to create a new body and cleanse the soul. 

If not, the impurities left from the genes of monsters would create an obstacle that would make one not be able to use the power of domains to their full potential. 

Being a second stage third-tier meant that they could advance into a fourth-tier once they did the soul and body refinement. The domain they wielded was called a fake domain and it held power infinitely close to a real domain. 

That was also why Cylius was scared.