The Astral soul system-Chapter 111: {Hello player: Hecate}

Zaine sucked in a deep breath as he felt a rush of cold energy. Something inside him was changing.

His left eye turned black but this time his pupil became a crimson red.

A bloody aura oozed off him as the vampire queen’s soul merged with his.

Zaine prepared another soul gun and this time the ball of energy was a chaotic blood red mixed with the usual black, making it look like some eldritch power.

This time he created an enhanced bullet,compressing it before shooting it at the tentacle.

This time it seemed to pierce through a little bit, but it still didn’t harm the beast, however, it did throw it into a frenzy as it started flailing about. Even the sprites had started glowing menacingly.

Theia seemed a bit worried as the sprites started moving and warned Zaine.

"Quickly,catch them before they damage the plants."

Zaine noticed that the sprites seemed to become active as they started getting bigger and bigger. One of them suddenly spewed red flames from within itself towards him.

Zaine quickly jumped out of his hiding spot , dodging the fireball.

"Theia,you never said they fought back"

"Oh,i didn’t? I...must have forgot"

Zaine sighed and brandished his sword, swinging it at one of the balls of fire with all his might . The sword sliced through, splitting it in two as it passed, but as soon as it moved away, the flame reformed.

"Similar to elementals,most physical attacks don’t affect them, you’ll have to use something else"

Zaine snarled.

"Lilith, make yourself useful!"

He heard a slight chuckle followed by her voice.

"Just follow my lead"

Zaine felt a slight guiding force, like something was trying to move his body into place, following it, Zaine took a stance that resembled someone about to throw a javelin. A red aura coalesced at his fingertips, forming a spear which he grasped.

[New skill: Blood spear(Lilith)]

Using his red energy as a catalyst, Zaine launched it at a sprite, impaling it and causing it to disperse into dust particles.

"Unfortunately,once they’re destroyed we can no longer capture them" Theia seemed unhappy to report.

"How do I capture them?" Zaine asked while preparing another blood spear.

"You need to force them to take physical form. You can use your astra to force them to crystalize, once that’s done it might as well be a shiny and oddly shaped beast crystal]

Zaine groaned and threw the blood spear while avoiding more attacks. What she said sounded like it took time, and right now he was surrounded.

"Lilith. I need something else. Less power, but more speed]

"Okay, but this one might sting"

[New skill: Blood shot(Lilith)]

While casting it, Zaine noticed that this skill was almost identical to soul gun, the only major difference was the energy used.

At this point,he was forced into full spellcaster mode, throwing skills left and right as his physical attacks were left ineffective. He glanced at a fire sprite spitting flames and grunted angrily before taking it out. Theia had told him how valuable the plants in the cave were and he wasn’t about to lose them all.

It seemed like ever since he had woken up he had been thrown into one unfortunate situation after the other, he could never fight how he wanted.

Lilith seemed to feel his frustration as the red aura suddenly increased in intensity.

[New skill: Blood canon(Lilith)]

Zaine was originally confused since he didn’t ask for this, but if anything, he was glad it was here.

"Careful. This one does damage to the user as well, and the recoil is nothing to laugh at"

Zaine barely paid any attention to the warning and aimed directly at the mass of tentacles coming out of the rift. Things would be much easier if he could just get rid of it.

All the blood energy in his body suddenly started to gather at his right arm’s open palm. So much of the crimson energy condensed that it even slightly resembled the actual liquid.

A strong force of blood left his hand and this time, Zaine couldn’t ignore the recoil as it forced his entire body back.

A loud bang was heard as the attack hit the center of the rift and all the tentacles at once.

Zaine coughed attempting to get up from the ground where he was flung. That attack had been stronger than he expected. Perhaps he had been a bit reckless.

As he was getting up, Zaine suddenly noticed something wrong. Maybe it was because of his insane pain tolerance, but he felt like he should have noticed earlier.

Zaine looked at the hand he had just used to fire the attack...or at least where it was supposed to be.

Zaine looked at the bloody mess on his shoulder that was all that was left of his right arm and could only let out a slight grunt, perhaps out of shock.

[-95 HP]

[Critical damage recieved]

[Natural healing is active]

[Host possess superior vitality]

While all these notifications were ongoing, something had already started to change.

Zaine could feel his arm twitching and tingling like something was about to come out. A black aura covered where the hand had been cut and when it moved away that part had healed a little, the patch of darkness kept moving up healing his arm and in a few seconds,half his arm was back.

"Zaine!"

"Are you okay?" Theia asked

"I told you to look out for the recoil " Lilith nagged but she didn’t sound bothered.

Before Zaine could answer, he suddenly felt his mouth was dry. A strange desire suddenly welled up inside him and he felt he was about to loose himself, similar to his mutation’s side effect.

"Theia.... what’s happening...to me" Zaine managed to squeeze out. He was expecting the healing since she’d told him of it, but not this.

With a hint of panic,Theia hurriedly answered.

"You’re being affected by Lilith’s soul. Vampires also have natural healing, however theirs is greatly reliant on blood. It seems the sensation of your body healing stimulated the natural vampiric urge to feed "

"But... I’m not a vampire " Zaine spat out

[Unequip Soul: Lilith?]

"Yes" Zaine answered and immediately the weird urge disappeared. It seemed equipping souls of different species would have interesting side effects depending on which soul he took.

By now his arm was completely healed and he was about to inspect the damage when he suddenly felt something wrapping around his torso, and squeezing him tightly.

[-20HP]

The slimy tentacle lifted him off the ground and towards the rift. Zaine looked at the tentacle and suddenly noticed that the shield was gone, perhaps his previous attack had more effect than he realized.

A monstrous rage filled screeching sounded from the other side, blowing into Zen’s face as he tried to get free.

Looking to his side Zaine suddenly saw two other tentacles aiming to grab his arms, and another two aiming for his legs. A few memories involving some weird books crossed his mind and the expression on his face immediately turned unamused.

"Yeah....no thanks"

[Soul(Freya): equipped]

His left eye turned black and blue and and he placed both his palms on the tentacle wrapping around his torso.

"This....isn’t that kind of story"

He mused before discharging as much electricity as he could out through his hands.

An even louder screech came out through the portal, however this one was mostly pain instead of anger.

The tentacle threw him down as fast as he could as even louder screams escaped.

Zaine managed to land on his feet and was about to continue attacking when...

[Astra depleted]

[Soul equip forcefully cancelled]

Zaine’s eye returned to normal as his power faded

The residual lightning surrounding him only lasted for a few seconds but those few seconds was more than enough for his phobia to kick in.

His heartbeat skyrocketed and he jumped back, stumbling on the ground.

Once the lightning dissipated, he managed to get his bearings somewhat, but it was too late, the opportunity he created was gone.

Realizing he had to retreat, Zaine grabbed his sword and ran out the cave and sat down at the edge of the entrance. Luckily the tentacle couldn’t reach there yet.

Zaine sat down to catch his breath , resting on his sword’s hilt.

"Are you okay?" Theia asked but he didn’t reply.

"Za-"

"Get off my back!"

Theia shrunk back as he yelled at her. He was frustrated.

Zaine stealthily peeked inside and noticed that things seemed to have calmed down. Even the sprites had gone back to just floating around

Zaine looked at the back of his right hand and noticed the player mark on his hand was still there. The stupid thing had grown back with his arm.

Zaine snarled and punched the ground in anger. He could still fight if he needed to, but even then, he had no idea what to do if he managed to push it back in.

Right now they were only four sprites left, and at this point he had given up on catching them. If he attacked quickly, he could take out three before they saw him at all, and he could finish the fourth two seconds after that. The main problem was the tentacles. He had attacked with all he had but it had done nothing. It seemed more weak to lightning so Zaine considered using that but right now he didn’t have any energy.

"I know how to fix that" Theia pointed out, looking a bit apprehensive.

"What?"

Theia told him about the books in Aurora’s office and how Zen had used them to recharge when he needed it.

"That’s... not a bad idea"

Zaine immediately started thinking and within seconds he had a plan. He still didn’t know what to do once he’d gotten rid of the tentacles, but he knew what to do up to that point.

Zaine quickly left to get them.

***********

Zaine dropped the stack of books onto the ground. He didn’t have a spatial ring so he had to carry them all.

By now his astra had filled up a little and his HP was almost full.

Zaine took off the cover he was using to protect the books from his touch and grabbed one of them.

Just like it worked with Zen, the book began to decay and in a few seconds it was dust.

He repeated this process until his Astra was full, luckily he still had a few books left.

Zaine peeked in and now the tentacles were even longer and the rift wider, there were also two more sprites but this didn’t affect his plan.

Zaine brought out something else he had managed to get his hands on while in the school. It was a couple of smoke bombs. Some kid from the forging class had made them and Zaine was more than happy to take them off his hands. Although he wasn’t sure if these things could see or were detecting him some other way, he figured it couldn’t hurt.

Zaine looked at the few books he had left. Each use of Blood canon required a hundred Astra which has half what he had.

Deciding to test his plan, Zaine took off his shoes and put some books close to his feet but didn’t step on them. He then aimed both his hands at the center of the rift.

He quickly equipped Lilith, threw the smoke bombs in and before they could explode,fired two Blood canons straight at the center of the rift.

A massive explosive happened inside the cave, smoke filled everywhere, obscuring vision, but Zaine still knew what to do. With the absence of his arms, Zaine touched the books with his bare feet, instantly regaining some energy which was immediately used to heal his arms.

Zaine immediately threw two blood spears into the dust cloud, the notifications, assuring him that he hit his targets. He picked up his swords and dashed in,not worrying about his vision since he had memorized their locations.

A few seconds passed and the smoke quickly dissipated due to the cave’s high humidity.

All the sprites were gone and Zaine was pointing his sword at the rift. Similar to before, the tentacles had temporarily lost their shield.

Zaine sighed and unequipped Lilith.

The next part would be the hardest.

"Don’t worry. I’m with you all the way "

[Soul (Freya): equipped]

Zaine’s eye did the usual change, and crackling sounds of electricity were produced by his body, but this time he wasn’t done.

[Charge (maximum power)]

[Soul weapon : Freya’s blade(dual)]

Zaine plunged his sword into the ground and opened his hands. With a flash of light,two incorporeal glowing swords made of light appeared in his hand.

Zaine took a deep breath, stomped his foot on the ground, unwittingly generating some lightning and immediately using a dash.

Streaks of lightning followed behind him as he ran towards the rift.

Noticing a tentacles headed for him, Zaine dashed in another direction, avoiding it completely.

Previously his speed had been enough to barely dodge in this closed space, but now, Zaine was running circles around it.

Once Zaine was close enough to the portal, he tried something he wasn’t sure would work and used soul blade. Surprisingly it was effective. It seemed the fact that they both weren’t physical weapons didn’t matter.

"Now!" Freya directed.

Zen brandished one of the swords and sliced through one of the tentacles, leaving visible burn marks as the electric swords burned through its flesh, leaving a charred stub in its place.

Another tentacles tried to attack him, but by the time it got there,all that was left was a streak of lightning. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

With another dash he got close to the edge of another tentacle, and the same repeated. Zaine did this over and over again until all the tentacles were nothing but short stubs sticking out of the portals.

The swords disappeared from his hands as he unequipped them and Zen put both his hands on the large stub coming out of the portal and started to push with all his strength.

After a few seconds, he realized this wouldn’t work and started punching it over and over again, his fists creating small shockwaves as they landed. He knew this wouldn’t be enough to harm it, but he didn’t need to harm it, he just needed it to feel pain,to flinch, to go back.

Slowly but surely it started to budge as the stubs were getting forced back into the portal.

"Almost there" Zaine groaned. He could feel his muscles aching. Although he was naturally resistant to elements,he didn’t have any special resistance towards lightning like Freya due to her ability,so all this was really damaging him. Even worse was the buzzing in his mind and the urge to just stop .

Eventually the last bit went into the portal. Zaine went back to pushing since he didn’t need to push it any further. Half his arms were now in the portal, and all Zaine could think about was how weird it felt.

"Theia! What do I do?"

[G.K: Don’t worry, I’ve got you]

Zaine was barely done reading when a new notifications popped up.

[Detected dimensional rift is ready to close]

[Beginning patch sequence]

The portal suddenly started getting smaller and smaller. Just like the system said, it was getting patched.

Zaine suddenly felt something in his hand. Without thinking much, he pulled it out with his hand, not willing to test what would happen if it closed with his arm inside, even if he could heal.

At the same time, the last of his power faded away as he ran out of astra. The rift closed up behind him and he fell on his butt, breathing heavily.

[Quest completed]

His head was buzzing for a few minutes as he slowly got the sound of thunder out of his head, but he managed to recover.

"Ha...ha. That...worked?... About fucking time something went my way"

"Yeah,too bad we didn’t get any sprites though "

"Well i did get something "

Zaine was about to check his hand to see what it was when he suddenly noticed the back of his hand was glowing, more specifically, his crest was glowing.

"I... what?"

Zaine immediately forgot about what was in his hand as a feeling of dread overtook him.

For the first time since he woke up, he felt more than simply anger,he felt pure dread.

{Player system back online}

{Greetings Player: Hecate}

Zaine suddenly started backing away, his body instinctively reacting to the screen that looked exactly like his system screen with a few changes.

His gaze shifted to the mark on his hand that was still glowing with a rainbow light.

"No no no no, this can’t be happening"

{Hello player: Hecate}

"You’re... you’re supposed to be dead"