The Astral soul system-Chapter 115: Sable’s mercy

Zaine looked at the direction they had been pointed in and looked back at Sable.

"Ready?"

Sable nodded and put on the white mask Zaine got for her. Her silver hair was probably still recognizable, but the chances of running into anyone from their school was low.

Black suddenly got off Zaine’s shoulder and hopped over to one of the corpses, perching on the head.

What followed was a horrific scene as multiple slim tentacles squeezed out of the raven’s mouth. The tips hardened into a bone like structure, penetrating the skull before the tentacles grabbed the brain and started tearing it apart before throwing chunks into the raven’s mouth.

Sable looked horrified but Zaine was only pleasantly surprised, looking curiously at it.

"So that’s what you eat? Brains?"

Theia appeared in front of him to answer.

"No, just mainly vital organs. It’s not that he can’t eat the whole body, he just prefers the taste of vitals."

"Where did Zen get such a sick raven?"

"It’s not the raven, it’s what’s inside" Theia briefly explained how Black was a parasite that had chosen his body as it’s host, and how it seperated a bit of its body to possess the raven’s body "

Zaine looked at his watch, and in response a few black tentacles started wiggling on the surface.

"Hope you’re hungry then. It’s time for a feast "

"I’m always hungry " An eldritch voice suddenly answered from the depths of his mind.

He looked at the raven,a little suprised before realizing that if it really was a parasite, it would make sense for it to have a way to communicate with its host.

Zaine looked back at Sable and pointed out.

"Never do that again"

"What?"

"Stabbing. It’s a katana, you’re not meant to stab with it,every time you stab someone or thrust with it,i cringe"

Sable rolled her eyes but noted that she had indeed been doing that recently. She looked at Zaine,a bit surprised he was actually paying enough attention to her to notice and bring it up.

Zaine shrugged and started walking towards the main base in this area, the raven immediately flying onto his shoulder.

"Wait!" Sable chased after him.

"What’s the plan?"

"Plan? The plan is go in,cut up some fags and burn the rest of their shit to the ground"

After answering like it was obvious, Zaine kept walking, not bothering to look back as he prepared for his next opponent.

Sable looked at him incredulously and sighed defeatedly. It was too late to make a plan anyway,at least they still had the element of suprise, but seeing how Zaine had handled things so far,that probably wouldn’t last very long.

"You act like a child. You know that, right?"

"..." For once, Zaine didn’t have a snide or rude reply and just grunted before he kept walking.

After walking for a few minutes, Zaine could see a somewhat large building that looked abandoned, with pieces missing in the walls and ceilings.

"An abandoned building.... how original"

Zaine gripped his sword tightly. He wasn’t here to criticize them so it was better he focus on what he’s supposed to do.

At the entrance was two guards were talking when they noticed the two teenagers.

"Hey! Stop right there, you’re in our territory,if you’ve got no business, get lost"

Zaine rolled his eyes and didn’t slow down. Gangs nowadays really did like to act tough didn’t they?

"Hey! I’m warning you masked freaks!"

"Look up"

Instinctively , one of the members looked up and before he could react, he felt his eyes go dark. Two large talons ripped directly into his eyes drawing blood as the gangster screamed in pain from the unexpected attack.

Before the second one could react, Zen dashed to his location, plunging his sword through his chest.

Zaine let the body drop to the floor. He hadn’t yet gotten an alert for the kill but it was only natural since they were still bleeding out. He didn’t intend to speed up the process in anyway so he just pulled out the sword and looked at the first gangster.

The first gangster seemed to have forgotten about his ability in his haze as he screamed and struggled to get rid of the bird attacking him. He was already blind so he didn’t exactly succeed.

Sable groaned and quickly decapitated the gangster, ending the horrified screams as the body fell to the ground.

"What was that?" She questioned Zaine

Zaine rolled his eyes and ignored the question.

"Regardless of how wrong that was, now they all know we’re here"

"Good. They might as well see their deaths coming"

"You shouldn’t be so confident in yourself. This is still a powerful gang" Sable warned.

"No I think we’re good " Zaine answered, kicking one of the dead bodies while watching Black consume his organs.

"What does that mean?"

"The old man was right. These guys are still new to this city, they’re too weak. Something isn’t right. How did they become top dog with only this much strength?"

"Maybe it’s the "weapon" they were talking about"

Zaine looked up thoughtfully. If there really was a powerful weapon like that,he wanted it. Just the thought of the destruction it could cause had him interested.

Sable looked down at the body she had decapitated and was getting devoured by Black. She wished she could say she was disgusted or appalled...but... she just couldn’t.

"Alright let’s go inside"

Black suddenly stopped with an eye in its mouth, crushing and devouring it. It looked a bit disappointed but it followed nonetheless.

Right at that moment, the door to the building slammed open and another group of gang members came through with weapons in hand.

"Get those masked freaks!"

Zaine snarled out of habit, his eye lighting up in response to his rage.

They all attacked him at the same time but he dodged most of them with little effort, and the ones he couldn’t dodge barely did any damage to him.

Brandishing his sword against the unarmored gangsters, Zaine immediately gave one of them a fatal wound before winding up and striking again.

One of them had tried countering with their own sword but it just snapped under the pressure of Zaine’s sword, clearly showing between the two. Zaine’s sword kept going after damaging the gangster’s sword and embedded itself into his neck.

Up above, Black was only making things more chaotic as it occasionally dropped down onto the battlefield, attacking with its unusually strong talons and beak as well as the tentacles, occasionally plucking out an eye or two.

Sable on the other hand, although not being used to this scene, wasn’t far behind. The blood didn’t really bother her for some reason so she was able to concentrate completely. She didn’t have much raw strength, but what she lacked there she made up for with speed that even Zaine couldn’t rival, and a completely unpredictable attack pattern. It seems she had been holding back a little when fighting Zen as well. No gangsters in her range of attack could last a full ten seconds before falling dead.

That being said,a very obvious pattern could be seen. Zaine’s side of the battlefield was completely messy and full of blood and entrails while Sable’s was uncharacteristically clean considering she was new at this.

Zaine looked at one of the "dead" bodies and checked it’s status.

[Unconscious]

’She’s actually using a katana,an unsheathed blade weapon to knock people out? Not bad ’

As for the gangsters he was obviously still going to kill them. He only cared for the exp and whatever else was here that could make him strong, and the system had made it clear what he needed to do. The term ’mercy’ was nothing to him.

They both dashed in, knocking down gangster’s one by one and eventually Sable realized what Zaine meant. Shouldn’t they have met someone strong enough to give them a little bit of trouble by now? It was like this whole base was filled with nothing but fodder, even if they didn’t look at their skills, even their abilities were trash, some of them didn’t even have abilities. A top gang was meant to be stronger than this, right?

A pit was beginning to form in her stomach as the feeling of something being wrong intensified.

Zaine on the other hand was completely thrilled. If these people weren’t strong enough to defend what they had, then he would kill them and take it all for himself. And even if he did get into a fight he couldn’t win with his current skills, he still had a few tricks he could escape with.

He looked at his exp meter which was so close to being full. All he had to do was take out a few more.

They both eventually made it to a large steel door, they could hear a few sounds at the other side but didn’t know what it was about.

Zaine knocked twice on the locked door and was a bit surprised.

"That’s definitely not part of the original periodic table. This... might take some effort"

[Charge(maximum power)]

Zaine’s stats all doubled as he opened his palm towards the door.

[Soul gun] 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

The dark ball of energy had started to gather at his hand but this time he wanted to modify it a bit. Using Zen’s memories of the modified blasts he created, he wanted to create something slightly different.

"Get ready to run when I say"

The ball grew and grew and grew in his palm for a few seconds before compressing and getting smaller.

When he felt it was large enough, Zaine released it into the air, but this time it simply floated in space and didn’t shoot forward.

"Now!"

Zaine and Sable made a run for it, making sure they were a few meters from it.

The ball visibly grew more and more unstable before it could no longer hold up. It exploded, releasing a huge booming sound and destroying the door.

Zaine looked at the system to see how much that had cost.

[-100 Astra]

[Congratulations, you’re well on your way to developing your own skill. Might need some tinkering though]

Zaine knew the system was right,not only was that attack too slow to use in a fight,it was also too consuming and just not worth the risk.

Zaine and Sable looked at the destroyed door and eased closer to the next room. They were definitely sure they heard voices.

Zaine suddenly started hearing clapping and out of the shadows,he heard a voice. At the same time his system acted up.

[New quest recieved: Into the tigers den]

[You’ve recklessly wandered into the tigers den. Now you must survive]

"So you two are the ones making trouble"

[Defeat this opponent]

"I can’t figure out what your abilities are,so they’re probably rare. I wonder how much i can get for selling you... after breaking your limbs of course "

[Reward: Instant level up]

Zaine read through the quest description and grinned.

’Survive? Theia,you should tell that to him’