Arlosse immediately set out to test if he could use Reform to heal himself. He had several questions about its mechanics that he needed to confirm, but he figured a practical test would answer most of them in one go.As he thought, it did.Upon choosing to use Reform with a mere trigger of his will, Arlosse instinctively placed his hand on his chest where the damage was most severe. To his surprise, a faint globe of solid orange light appeared around his hand and highlighted his tattered tunic as well as the skin on his chest which rose and fell as he breathed.The way the Far Ji expressed itself was just like how its power manifested from the candle beside Alabas’ throne. It was astonishing, mesmerising even.However, a minute passed. Then ten.Nothing happened.Arlosse quickly convinced himself that this wasn’t too surprising. The Limit on Reform was that each successful usage of it would cost him half an hour’s worth of time.Indeed, it was quite frustrating, but a Unique Quality’s
[You have arrived on the SECOND FLOOR, the Crucible of Twin-faced Hope]As the Host Guide announced the strange name of the new Floor, Arlosse hardly registered it in his head. His mind was a bit preoccupied trying to reconcile that he was back in a place like this, the home of death, its emissaries and victims, all of whom raged senselessly – recklessly – as though possessed by devils.Blood spilled every which way the Incarnate looked.Bones crunched under the feet of whinnying horses and tamed, canine beasts he didn’t recognise.Flesh squelched, torn open for all to see the unsightly beauty it hid.The scorching orange sun above, merciless and uncompromising, seemed determined to make all the thousands of corpses lying about look as insignificant, shameful and irrelevant as possible by arousing the stink within them, summoning flies and starved critters in the dry, rocky desert.Human men and women with assortments of armour roared, their steel clashing against that of enemies whil
When it happened, it took a great portion of the wide battlefield by storm.There had been no prelude – no surge of Spirit Essence, marking its advent known.When Arlosse opened the Hermetic Vault, he didn’t hesitate to send out one of the Immaterial Slashes he had stored from his exchange with King Alabas, the Flying Reaper Sword.To maximize damage, ensuring that he caught the largest body count possible, which would immediately free him from the crowd of assailants, he had the disembodied slash materialize an inch from him, its lethal edge lateral.A loud noise, not too dissimilar to a vicious boom rolled out across the battlefield.Because of the sheer speed the Immaterial Slash charged forth with, it butchered nearly fifty bodies directly in front of the Hollow Demonling at once, creating a sound akin to an explosion. Those who had been struck barely registered that their lives were forfeit, but the attack itself neither waited nor cared.It traveled far and wide, culling human,
“What did you have to kill many of our own for, you fool?!”“Uhh…” Arlosse murmured, unsure how he was to answer this question if it even required him to give a lengthy explanation.Besides being stunned by the question, the Incarnate was also taken aback by the appearance of his fellow demon.Back in his old days, Arlosse wouldn’t have pegged himself as someone who had any right to judge another individual’s appearance. He didn’t have that luxury and wasn’t exactly a handsome model of a man himself.However, today… right now…Long story short, the poison green half-mantis, half-caterpillar creature packed before him, dressed in leather armor and shawl that somehow fit it perfectly well… was atrociously hideous!It had a thick, black chitinous layer on its back that extended to its small head, which was decorated by dark, beady eyes and sharp mandibles that clacked when it spoke.“Well? How are you going to explain this to the Generals? And come to think of it… How come I’ve never see
(A/N: This is the only chapter written in First Person)."Please, I beg of you! Please spare my family! I'll do anything! I'll give you anything!" the man whom I presume is a husband to the quivering woman behind him, and a father to the ghastly pale boy of probably no more than ten years, clutching his arm viciously, screams.I sigh.There is nothing this man can offer me that can change his fate, after all, I am after his and his family's lives.His pleas only make me grip my saber tighter. Let me get this over with.The longer they stare at me like this – with terror and dwindling hope – the more upset I become. But I do not show it with my face.I raise my saber and take a step forward, an action that the man before me responds to by burning away the pathetic, torn visage he has had on all this time, and donning a feral one.A desperate one.He lunges at me while calling for his wife and son to escape, but his attempt, while admirable for a common man, does not amount to much.I
Incarnate ^8001.He didn't know what that meant, but he was more concerned about the bizarre phenomenon happening around him. What was that voice?What was happening to him?What was that light?He wanted to speak, but it seemed his form of existence at present was too abstract. Not abstract enough for him to exist without emotion though.He began to panic as a normal person placed in this situation would.Thankfully, it didn't seem like he was trapped here.The dark surroundings suddenly whirled, and by some identifiable metric, he managed to understand that he was moving. He was falling at a controlled speed.A moment later, everything changed.An odd space covered his entire view.It was what seemed like a small room. All of its dimensions – which assumed a perfect cubical shape together – spotted the same twilight fog hue, with no distinction from anything up, down, left, or right.Bizarre.Really bizarre.There was only silence in this place for a while.An uncomfortable silenc
The ambiance of an expanse registered. Then a slight cool. Something was prompted to react to the environment, which had a coolness to it. Incarnate ^8001 awakened to the taste of dirt, and the ruthless pelting from grains of what felt like sand to his face. He blinked a couple of times and then stood up from where he had been lying down. He felt very stiff, and oddly restrained, as though he had gears that hadn't been oiled in a very long time. Of course, if you asked the new Incarnate what a gear was, he would wear a puzzled face. Perhaps to him, the better analogy would be, that he felt like unwashed armor, full of dirt at the joints. He stretched subconsciously and found his condition to improve only slightly. He was still so stiff. "Why do I feel so...?" he had begun to speak when it finally smote him. "I have a body! I can speak!" He looked frantically at his body and fondled every part of himself that didn't resist. He indeed had a body, but it was unlike the one he ha
Mustering every bit of strength that he could wring from his quickly weakening body, Incarnate ^8001 forced himself to backpedal down the way he had come and tumble down the rise he had just scaled.He fell down, eating a mouthful of sand in the process, and thudded onto the somewhat soft sand floor.He took deep breaths as his hearts thundered in his chest, only relaxing after a full two minutes had passed.'What manner... of heretic object is that?!' he wondered while laying his hand over his chest and feeling the vibrations from his flesh. 'Were those people worshipping it?' he added in thought, his skin tingling dreadfully.The Incarnate had never really been religious in his past life, though not because he didn't have the desire for it his whole life, but because of a lack of time to commit. His conscription into the army, which led him to brave endless trials between the borders of life and death for twenty years, encouraged a more 'natural' pragmatic thought process.What he j