Scurra71900 - Thank you!
merendinoemiliano - Thanks!
To that one guest that's pointed my continued errors with saying "Skill Points" instead of "Stat Points". I'll get on that soon. I imagine when I upload this, there will still be some errors that I'll have to correct, major ones likely. So once that is done, I'll begin rewriting those mistakes accordingly. Ty.
And to all those who do continue to ask. Yes, I have read Chrysalis. :3
On with the show!
(Nekros POV)
I woke up to the sounds of blaring thunder above me.
And of course, the feeling of rain. Yet again.
The usual.
Why is this becoming a recurring theme? Couldn't Titan have just dragged me underneath a tree?
I quickly realised where I was and what I was supposed to be doing and got up from my back, somehow feeling... Larger? No. It wasn't just that notion that was made readily apparent to me.
I felt amazing! I could barely feel the rain pouring on me with the recent upgrades to my hide, in which case, I should really take a look at how I actually look now. Spending all that Biomass in such a short amount of time could not have possibly been healthy for me.
Taking note of what was readily apparent on my body, my hide seems to have only become thicker and harder in response to the growing amount of Biomass that I chucked into it. Whereas before it was made more defensively capable with the interlinking sections of bone and muscle that grounded itself within the hide, creating a kind of natural armour for me beforehand; it looked like now that it was nearing completion, it felt tighter across my entire body as increased amounts of bone sectioned off and intertwined with one another, seeking to strengthen their bonds. The once inconspicuous bone spikes that had only been made apparent by their tiny peaks had pierced further outwards from my body, waving off their stealthy capabilities in favour of making itself known to the outside world.
That wasn't the only expedition that my spending of Biomass did towards my bone plates. The bone plates on my face became more angular as my claws poked and prodded the spoken area, showcasing itself more as it became less blocky overall, fitting itself well onto the plates that were already extending past my maw and further down my neck, creating even more armour and a more imposing overall look for yours truly. The plates that had slotted near my fangs had been pushed out and extended as the recent upgrades to my fangs had made them ever so sharper and larger, meaning my body had to make room for it without destabilising the other changes surrounding my body.
It was a good fit though, it looked as natural as ever with the other changes.
Well, as natural as can be in this case.
The spikes and plates that surrounded my back, shoulders and arms only grew longer and thicker as the changes were made clear, the once budding rows on the right and left of my back and finally sprouted their rewards with their dangerously sharp and imposing spikes being shown invariably clear of the rest. They were quill-like. The only deviations from the rest were the occasional changes in length, width and the spiraling, mysterious patterns of running gold that joined their way into one another as they ran all across the lengths of my plates and spikes respectively.
The Overlord purchase didn't seem to do much else either, likely because I only spent +1 Biomass on it but there was at least some change. The imp like horns that were already taking hold on the top of the bone plates on my face had grown thinner and sharper, the only major change within them being the actual amount of those gleaming patterns that were enveloping them. It was enough so that it gave them a yellowish tint instead of the bland white that was usual for all Grimm.
That ended up being one of the more... Obvious changes when I woke up? Several of the spikes, specifically the ends of them, had that golden tint to them that the horns on my head had. I wasn't too sure on how this was helping me in any way? I could only see this as a major downgrade, considering it'd make me a lot more obvious with any enemy that was trying to find me. All they had to do was find the literal glowing golden Grimm and they knew it would be me.
Great.
Least the eye upgrades did something more than just, *getting bigger*. I seemed to have a tiny little slot for a third eye on the top end of the bone plates on my face? I guessed that I needed to invest more into my eyes to be able to use it but for now, it was merely there as a biological showcase of what was to come in the future. Moving away from that, I could feel my eyes get bigger on their own, and with that, came something stranger along with the re-sizening.
I could see wisps of bright orange, maroon red, dark yellow and a black / weird purple tinted type that were all maybe leading somewhere in particular? It was the only conclusion I could draw upon first glance as when I swiped my claws through the wisps or moved through it, it didn't seem to do much of anything other than make it dissipate on impact.
I was gonna get to that in a little while however, I realised now as I woke up that I hadn't done anything meaningful to my stat points to my attributes in a very long time. I had only seeked to take up my physical enhancements and nothing else! What kind of pack leader am I?
Let's check what I got first, shall we?
Status:
Name: Nekros
Class: The Gamer
Race: Fledgling Overlord Grimm (Soul) (2/5)
Level: 28(Next Level: 2480/7500)
Title: Novice Grimm Slayer
Bounty: 0 Lien
HP:866/866
MP:303/303
STR: 61.1[Base 47 + 14.1(30%)]
VIT: 40.3[Base 31 + 9.3(30%)]
DEX: 32.5 [Base 25 + 7.5(30%)]
INT: 46.5[Base31 + 9(30%) + 7.5(25%)]
WIS: 18.6[Base 12 + 3.6(30%) + 3(25%)]
LUK: 16
Elemental Affinity: None
Skill Points: 55
Biomass: 7
Lien: 6300
Status Affects: None
...
...
...
I'm gonna have to spend a lot of time here, working with that many Skill Points.
I breathed a silent growl.
Why does it all have to be so tiresome?
3 Hours Later.
Finally.
After much deliberation and annoyances from the weather. My status page looks something like this now:
Name: Nekros
Class: The Gamer
Race: Fledgling Overlord Grimm (Soul) (2/5)
Level: 28(Next Level: 2480/7500)
Title: Novice Grimm Slayer
Bounty: 0 Lien
HP: 983/983
MP: 458/458
STR: 65 [Base 50 + 15(30%)]
VIT: 52 [Base 40 + 12(30%)]
DEX: 39 [Base 30 + 9(30%)]
INT: 62 [Base 40 + 12(30%) + 10(25%)]
WIS: 46.5 [Base 30 + 9(30%) + 7.5(25%)]
LUK: 16
Elemental Affinity: None
Skill Points: 11
Biomass: 7
Lien: 6300
Status Affects: None
I inserted a lot of my skill points into a more general, overall kind of build for me at this point in time. In the past I've heavily invested a lot of my points into STR and VIT, and whilst they have done me good for as long as they've been with me. I know that I've really only been fighting literal animals with no semblance of thought or strategy. The only thoughts that many of these Grimm have in their miserable lives are of those simply to kill, scavenge and seek out negativity. As I keep growing and growing, I realise now, likely due to the increase in INT, that i'm going to have to fight those that are on the same level as me.
Those that are stronger, smarter, faster and more powerful than me as I continue towards my goal. All the more reason to try and get stronger! Can you imagine the XP that some of those things would give me if I managed to kill them? I'd become a monster overnight!
The major improvements to my attributes also gave me a bunch of new skills! Lets check them out:
Getting my VIT up to fifty got me:
[Steel Skin. Lv10 (Active) EXP: 0%: The user reinforces their skin with the attributes of steel. This ability allows you to halve any mundane damage taken whilst using it, by extension, increasing their VIT stats to 1.3x their base. Also increasing their HP by an additional 350! Will greatly exhaust MP reserves by activating.
Actively halved mundane damage taken. VIT increased by 1.3x, HP increased by +350.
Cost: 30 MP a second.]
Getting my INT up to fifty got me as well:
[The Actor! Lv10 (Active) EXP: 0%: The user talks in the voice of someone the user has recently killed! Cause confusion and disrepair through your "acting" abilities.
Allows the user to talk to another individual in the voice of someone that the user has recently deposed of.
Cost: 5 MP a second]
That last ability seems more of a long con kind of deal to me, being able to use someone else's voice for my own is useless to me at this point in time unless I'm hidden either under the darkness of night or very well somewhere else. Seriously. It doesn't matter what kind of human I kill and use for my own gains, I still look like some sort of mutant Alpha! No amount of voice masking will hide that very obvious fact.
The top ability seemed a lot more useful though. Being able to increase my VIT to 1.3x its base? Along with my "Enrage!" ability, that means I could improve my VIT even more if I can combine the two!
How much HP would I actually gain from that?
I could feel myself drooling at the prospects when the sounds of shrubbery, leaves and the foliage around me being shaken and ripped apart became noticeable.
It was Titan!
As he was swinging around the place, he finally seemed to notice that I was up from the mud and with a mighty *thud*. Landed right next to me. It was in that split second as he got to his full height that I finally noticed that as I stood on my hind legs, that I was as tall as Titan, maybe even more so!
Ok. Don't freak out. We need to get on with what we're doing.
As Titan came up and... Checked if I was alright? Maybe? It was tough to tell with Beringels, they got that blocky face that obscures literally everything other than their anger. Least he seemed in high spirits, swinging around the forests and killing whatever he saw in his sights. It was like a makeshift holiday for the rising adult. Only with a little bit more killing on the side. A Grimm favourite.
I commanded Titan to go out and to continue to hunt for the rest of the day, it was useless for only me to go out and to continue to get stronger after all! If this was going to work in any way, I needed the both of us to continue to get much stronger to prepare against any enemies that we come across in our journey.
He got the message as I sent the thought down through my Aura, jumping back on the tops of the nearby trees and leaping across, looking out for his next prey to a sadistic fashion through his own senses and skills.
I'll be needing to check up on what he has collected so far when he comes back later tonight.
But for me? It was time to finally follow those mystical wisps that still hung around the air around me. Various colours and patterns running through them all the while as their trails pointed to a singular place, further inside of the forest.
I followed and tailed and crept through the forest as I kept on following the trails that the wisps were leaving behind, crouching through various flora, catching and killing whatever low levelled Grimm I could find along my way, I realised more and more that it wasn't leading me into the forest itself, it was leading me out somewhere. Somewhere without the safety and comforts that the forests give to Grimm like me and Titan. Suddenly, I wasn't feeling too keen as I was before.
Nevertheless, I continued on! These upgrades to my eyes were gonna be worth something, I can feel it!
3 Hours Later.
I had finally reached the edge of the forest, which seemed kinda strange considering how close I actually was to it yesterday but nevertheless, I had finally managed to get back to where I originally planned.
The wisps of various colours had led me to the edges of the forest and from the darkness of night, and the ongoing, much more pronounced sounds of rainfall and thunder that accompanied the night, it had also led me to the human outpost.
Using my "Stealth" skill to hide even further under the cover of darkness, I slowly crawled along the mud towards where the wisps were leading, and then it met me head on as I was focusing on the amount of sound I was making and the ground beneath me.
The wall.
That nefarious thing that was blocking my goals from being accomplished.
But it was so close! The wisps were glowing brighter and brighter as I came along and I could literally feel that whatever they wanted me to find, or if they wanted me to find it at all. It would likely be behind this specific section of the overbearing wall, and that was a risk I was willing to accept to find whatever this thing is.
Imagine if it was another Evolutionary Core! It would be such a boon!
Well, It was impossible to climb over the thing without someone finding out, and even with these new claws I had on me. It was gonna be another thing entirely to scale the wall in the first place, and without causing a multitude of noise to alert all the humans on the wall to my location.
Couldn't break through the wall... That'd cause an even louder disturbance. Can't imagine all the delicious chaos that would follow from the result of a section of their whole damn wall crumbling down. That village would be out and running so fast. It almost gives me an idea...
No. Lets think about it logically. I cannot seek to antagonise a whole human outpost just to get whatever these wisps were leading to, I needed something else.
...
...
...
What if I just dug underneath it?
Realistically, its thundering and its the middle of the night right now, me digging under this outpost would in these conditions would mean that I'd likely never get seen in the first place. All I had to do was keep track of my surroundings and keep digging.
And so I decided to dig.
And dig.
And dig.
And dig.
And dig.
And dig.
I even managed to get a skill that was literally called nothing but: "Dig". Can you guess what that skills purpose was?
It felt like hours had already passed before any meaningful progress was being made, and then my claws shifted across something a bit more solid then the usual dirt and mud that I was continuously sifting through.
Wooden planks were there, a glimpse of something more but it was clear that I had stumbled onto something that I could reasonably enter.
I frantically gave in to this chance and began chucking out masses of dirt and mud behind me to get a better view of the building I just stumbled on. I eventually carved out a hole about a metre wide, as I further inspected the foundations of what I found.
The wood was rotting from the inside out, it was soft and malleable to the touch. I didn't even need these recently upgraded body modifications to cut through this, I could have torn through it even as a pup. That's just how far along the rot had come to bear. The wisps came along with me through this dirt tunnel I had essentially made, and flowed through the surface of the wood onto the other side, the only things I could see beyond the rotted wood was a room full of... Various things?
It didn't look like much of anything as I kept my eyes rooted forward! Absolutely nothing! Was this all a sham! Was I played by a trick of the light! Has being knocked out so many times under the rain finally made my mental state snap?
[Clearly.]
...
I don't need you, blue box! I can manage my own mental state just fine. All I gotta do is keep following wherever this stuff is leading.
And lead it did, the myriad of colours that were combining within the wisps trails were finally blossoming outwards and forming into their own strands within the room, connecting themselves to various containers within, seemingly under lock and key.
No matter! All I have to do first is break in.
And with the most careful of claw placements, I stripped and tore away the rotten boards of wood that were blocking me from my one and only purpose. Stealing whatever was in those containers.
I shifted and squeezed my way through the opening, a tight fit for sure, but it was just enough for me to face plant onto the wooden floorboards beneath, making a large, reverberating sound echo out across the area.
I'm really smart if you couldn't tell.
As I got up from the floor, groaning in slight discomfort all the while. I finally took note of my surroundings with the clear view I've been given. The room was nothing interesting at all, collections of items and seemingly random assortment of stuff were scattered around the room and placed on shelves. The more important ones, the ones the wisps were crawling into, were a solid, obsidian black and were kept under lock and key. They were made of metal, evidenced with the obvious metallic clanging noise that was being made as I poked and prodded against them with some force. The room was populated with a selection of lights, albeit ones that were crudely made, sticks with what seemed like fire dust on top as they continuously burned without the rest of the area catching fire, and without the light itself flickering out of existence.
A pair of cobblestone stairs, leading up were the only human made exit and entrance out of this wooden building of sorts. I didn't bother checking whether if anyone was upstairs, if they had heard me before, they would have likely been down already.
I met face to face with a container that a bright orange trail was leading to, a wispy one as well. Lock and key? No problem! Just use a couple Beowolf claws to tear open the damn thing and there we go.
...
An orange crystal?
No. It was clearly something more. It was a collection of variously scattered, but equally shaped amounts of bright orange crystals that were taking residence inside the box. As I inspected one and took it into my inventory, a pop-up came to me.
Bright Orange Dust Crystal (Refined)
Potency: 100% (50% Base + 50% for being Refined)
Crafting Material / Attribute Enhancer
Ohhhhhh.
These were refined dust crystals!
Not like that shabby, unrefined raw stuff I had found previously in that weird cavern. I immediately took it upon myself to gorge my inventory on literally, all the bright orange dust crystals I could find within the box.
[You have collected Refined Bright Orange Dust Crystals x 15!]
And when they all disappeared, and as the wispy trail of orange spun away into nothingness, I realised then, that these trails were leading me to dust deposits! Either that or it was a combination of my nose and eyes for being able to track these things, whilst they were locked away in a rotting room.
The next box was the same as I tore it open. This time, a different type of dust crystal:
Lightning Dust Crystals (Refined)
Potency: 100% (50% Base + 50% for being Refined)
Crafting Material / Attribute Enhancer
I gathered those up as fast as I could as well.
[You have collected Refined Lightning Dust Crystals x 15!]
What about the next one?
Fire Dust Crystals (Refined)
Potency: 100% (50% Base + 50% for being Refined)
Crafting Material / Attribute Enhancer
Fire Dust crystals? These looked dangerous as I inspected them, holding them up against my deep red eyes and against the light. I had no idea how I was gonna use them but, if I could find a way, It'd do me nothing but good I imagined.
[You have collected Refined Fire Dust Crystals x 15!]
What was the last one?
As I was inspecting the locked up box, I froze as I heard something I never wanted to hear.
A high pitched scream.
I snapped my eyes to the noise's location, my eyes meeting the trembling forms of two humans in what looked like their standard gear of brown and bland. One female. One male.
Their stunned forms quickly retreat as the female turns back and runs up the cobblestone stairs, as her counterpart takes out a weird contraption from his back, a metal pointy stick at the end of a wooden mechanism. Pointing straight... at... me...
...
WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?!
RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN.
Nekros you stupid idiot, what the hell are you doing staring at a human when you're looking like a whole Alpha Beowolf?!
My legs start pumping into overdrive as I charge myself across the room to my makeshift hole. Knocking over all sorts of shelves and items along with me, the room largely being made into a tip in the wake of my escape.
As the metal arrow stuck itself into the wooden wall next to me, it only made me re-hasten my efforts into escaping the area.
I knew I could very well take out this human, judging from his attempts at missing me and his shaking visage. It didn't much look like he had a whole lot in the way of confidence. But my fears wasn't with this human in particular, it was the prospects of more experienced ones coming down to finish the job he couldn't.
As I squeezed and struggled my way through the makeshift escape route, I finally *popped* out the other side, and made haste for the welcoming, darkened arms of the forest and its waiting inhabitants.
But. As was always the case with humans in general. You can never really count them out at any point in a fight. Can you?
(Violet POV)
Violet sat behind her desk. The desk was similar to the woman in many ways, unadorned, simple even and solid. The desk had to be joined together since she couldn't find a nail that would go through the stuff, and there was little in the way with quality builders or engineers in a frontier town as small as Istrum was.
It was peaceful and relaxing, as was the case with our mystery benefactor taking up all the Grimm's time on the outskirts of the forest. Her letters had piled up in a short stack and all the paperwork she needed to attend to had already been done and dusted.
She thought back to the reports that Saturn had given her earlier the past day, reports on interrogation attempts into the deceased's former squad and from outlining scouting missions to inspect and follow the ongoing trail of Grimm "excursions", wherever they were to appear. All they had originally found beforehand were shattered landscapes and a very distinct lack of one thing in particular.
Grimm.
Grimm were disappearing in huge swathes across the area, in which they originally thought it was nothing short of a contracted huntsman / huntress that was just doing their duty. That all changed when one of our own scouts died when inspecting another excursion, and when the reports from his original squad came back. It only complicated the matter even further beyond its original recognition.
This man was absolutely obsessed with a specific Grimm that was lurking within the forests, enough so to leave behind a multitude of drawings and diagrams solely dedicated to this one, single Beowolf. When he was explaining his "obsession" to his fellows, the others only merely assumed it was a trick of the light. A mirage.
How else were they meant to explain his reasoning? A Beowolf that was "evolving" day by day? Night by night? Might as well mark it with a big red fucking label that screamed: "Mutant" and be done with it. But no, he continued on, the recent disappearances of the Grimm only spurred him on to check out those sites independently and feverously. Desperate to prove that what he saw was real.
He never came back that day. And here we are now.
It had become much more of a headache since that report had come back. How hard is it in this damn place for a girl to just relax?
All of a sudden, Karl basically flew into the room, as he smashed the door open before quickly and frantically trying to compose himself to make himself presentable to her. It didn't really help much with the overall image as Violet had already gotten up from beside her desk for whatever he so desperately wanted.
"What's the matter?"
"We have a situation my dear, please follow me to see what I mean."
As Karl rushed out the room with Violet in tow, she went to turn a slither of attention to the world outside. It was miserable, rain and thunder battering the landscape in a tide of nature's fury. It would be a depressing night for everyone involved in this affair after she was done.
They descended the stairway down stories and stories, until they reached beneath the earth and into one of their many weapon caches that had laid unused for quite a while. They were now mostly used as nothing but plain storage.
However, they still needed some level of protection against any would be thieves from taking any of the more dangerous or volatile items that were stored away within these caches, and that's where these two come in.
"Commander Violet." They both responded simultaneously as they stood at attention, next to the cobblestone staircase.
She nodded her head towards the both of them, it really was a pain being so short compared to the rest of them...
She looked towards the female guard: "You were the one that called out for help. Correct?"
The person in question nodded frantically.
"Explain what happened down there."
"Yes commander." Stating as she nodded to her companion in tow: "When we were on patrol on the upper floors of the building, we could only really hear the weather outside, since it was so obvious, before we started hearing... Movement. In the storage room. We assumed that it was the weather again as we saw no one come down those stairs." She sighed in response: "Kaif over here thought it was a mess of rats of all things that had finally gnawed through the wood!"
"We decided to check downstairs when the noises of what sounded like grating metal? Started to take shape, it sounded like nails against a chalkboard as whatever was going on down there was clearly making a mess."
"And that's when we saw it."
Violet urged them on: "Saw what in particular?"
"An Alpha Beowolf standing right there in the centre of the room."
Violet and Karl simultaneously stilled upon hearing this info.
"We don't have any clue on what it was even doing there, it didn't even pay any attention to us until I..."
"Screamed out like a little girl?" Her partner cut in.
The girl's face slowly became a gleaming bright red that was only accentuated with the pale colour of her skin, still not betraying her stance however. A good soldier. Nearly.
"What we do know, commander, is that it took nearly all our Dust reserves with it. It seems as if we had caught the beast just in time before it ran off with all of our contents."
Violet paused and waved a hand in front of her face, shushing her: "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. It took nearly all of our Dust stashes from down there? Dust? The thing we use that basically enables us to fight against things like the Alpha Beowolf? And it was just taking it."
Karl intervened as well upon hearing this: "This is... A most troubling development my dear. A single person taking all those refined Dust crystals along with them is already a cause for concern. But a creature of the Grimm? An Alpha nonetheless...?"
As Karl was continuously speaking to the rest of the guards and asking them a multitude of never ending questions, she went downstairs to inspect the room for herself.
It was just as she described it, and how she expected an Alpha to act when faced with any kind of adversity. The room was trashed, weapons and items laid on top of one another as if they were simply thrown against each other, the walls had claw marks and holes embedded within them. Then finally, the centrepiece of it all. The massive, metre wide hole in the wall that was leading to the outside.
The rain and thunder that was collecting were now running into the room in a truly lively fashion, swamping the floor in a mix of mud, dirt and muck that did no favours for her boots. She inspected the hole further, finding evidence that it had been cleaved through in a surprisingly surgical fashion. She more or less expected a total nightmare of a room to accompany her as she walked down, it was mostly the outside elements which were causing her some disdain.
Karl soon came down himself, complaining and muttering to himself all the while as his immaculate clothes were being dirtied and soiled by the elements rushing in.
"I have interrogated our little witnesses further and found out a few interesting tidbits. One, the fact that this Alpha decided to actually run away from them instead of fight head on, even as one of them brandished their weapons!"
Oh yeah,there was that as well, why didn't it fight upon seeing them? It clearly heard them if it decided to run off and an Alpha has the full capabilities of massacring the two of them. So why not?
"As well as that, her companion had stated that this Grimm was... Different then any of the rest he had ever seen before."
Violet sighed: "Obviously Karl, I don't think the pair of them have even seen an Alpha Beowolf in all of their lives. I trust they don't want to ever again after tonight."
"No, no, no my dear. He said that this Alpha's bones were spiked with laded gold. Almost gleaming next to the light of the torches inside. His constant ranting about, "No animal should ever have that many spikes on its body", could mostly be contributed to it being an Alpha, but considering that its apparently got a colour scheme now of all things, I'd like to think that it too has a somewhat abnormal amount of *things* attached to it."
Huh. Would you imagine that? A Grimm that was made of gold. It was almost like a fairy tail.
Almost.
And as she looked outside upon the storm, she then decided what she would do in the face of this foe.
She would be going out for a nice walk.
A bit of rain never hurt anyone, right?
Another chapter down.
This was a fun chapter to write, finally getting back into the groove of pumping out 5k chapters again and again. It's a nice feeling when it all starts coming together.
While I was away on Christmas and New Years and even my own birthday etc and etc. We managed to breach 300+ followers!
I say this every damn chapter at this point. But I seriously cant understate just how much it means to me that you guys like what I'm putting out.
So yeah. Thank you, every single one.
As always, critiques and reviews are always accepted.