The Astral soul system

Chapter 262: Where is my codex?

"it seems while it’s berserk, it doesn’t react to damage"

Theia noted.

All that meant to Zaine was that this death wouldn’t be as painful for it as it had hoped.

Something suddenly flickered in the corner of his eye and his wing instinctively moved to shield him.

The attack did minimal damage and even allowed his wings to get a bit of a charge from absorbing it. He looked to the side, seeing a slightly less muscular and smaller orc with a weird looking rod.

"Shaman"

He grit his teeth, looking at how much time he had left. That whole sequence had taken about thirty seconds, meaning he had lost quarter of his time.

Snarling, he formed another concentrated blast that snowballed back into the size of bowling ball, firing it at the shaman.

A translucent barrier rose in front of it but the attack broke through it like it was a pane of glass, charging towards the shaman.

It looked like nothing could stop it from hitting when a pair of orcs appeared in front of the blast, shielding the shaman with their bodies.

The energy was mostly depleted at that point so it could easily avoid damage.

Zaine groaned at the futile display of foolish loyalty.

He dashed forward, his blade covered hand slashing and mowing down the orcs in front of him.

Before he could reach the shaman he looked up to see the club heading for him again. Jumping, he took to the skies again. He was about to attack again when he noticed the shaman had stopped moving, its staff pointed at the cheif while every other orc had surrounded it in case he attacked.

"Looks like they’ve placed their bets"

Theia remarked

[Charge]

His stats doubled as the two charged at each other.

Whatever the shaman had done, he could feel it wasn’t good for him. The boss was not only much stronger but much more tanky. None of his ranged attacks were knocking it down.

In that case, his fists would have to do.

Unequipping the soul blade, he flew in closer, winding up and punching the cheif right in the face. He could feel it lean back, he’d made the mountain of meat budge, and done something else.

He looked at his fist that had temporarily ignited when he hit the boss. It was a bright red flame. He’d only seen it for a second but he was sure.

Although the system gave him loads of information,it was still on the host to figure out the intricacies of their power and how to utilize it on their own.

"You’re angry"

He muttered.

He couldn’t just see it, he could feel it, and it felt good.

Red dots of energy appeared in the air around him, and looking at the boss he could see an obscene amount of the dots he knew to be sparks of rage.

He looked at his hand and the sparks enveloping the boss, thinking.

As the boss brought up its club and brought it down on his head again, he didn’t dodge this time, holding his hands over his head and holding it

The club also had sparks in it for some reason.

"Let’s see how angry we can make you"

A huge portion of his astra went down, and his wings suddenly spread wide. Like they were connected by magnets, the feathers slowly separated until more than two dozen were floating behind him

With a single thought , they all rained down like arrows upon the remaining orcs.

Some of them hurried to shield the shaman but they were skewered nonetheless.

Theia had muted all notifications so he wouldn’t get distracted but with the bonus exp from all those kills, he knew he was close to leveling up again.

Unfortunately a few had survived, including the shaman, though those who’d tried protecting it were not do lucky. He considered trying again, but first he wanted to see the results of his assault.

The roar told him all he needed to know. Activating his heart flame, he focused on the orc cheif. He’d never used this on an opponent before but

[Soul bridge]

Pulling the sparks towards himself, he groaned, feeling something happening.

On his chest a lotus with seven different coloured petals appeared, though only one was lit up , and from it a bright red flame erupted filling the glowing marks and runes on his body, filling his wings as well from under the feathers.

[Str: +10]

The increase, added to his base attack which sat at thirty due to charge was now a solid forty. Multiple times higher than his base.

With a huff, he knocked the club away, throwing a punch at the orc, causing it to stumble backwards and a the fire to intensify

[Str: +1]

As soon as he realized what was happening, Theia once again muted the notifications.

He threw another punch, and another, his strength increasing as he forced the mountain of meat to back up.

The tribal markings lit up again, indicating it was in its berserk state. It threw a punch of its own to meet Zaine’s and in the end he won out, knocking the orc chiefs hand back.

[Barrage]

His energy built up for a second before releasing in a torrent of punches,each stronger than the last, releasing sounds that resembled gun powder as they struck the chief’s head

The last punch struck the hardest, sending the orc cheif crashing down.

And it wasn’t getting back up if he had something to do about it.

Holding out his hand, he saw the sparks of rage start gathering over his palm as a concentrated ball of energy about the size of a pingpong ball formed over his hand. The flames on his body started moving to his hand instinctively, tainting the ball with a crimson glow and a trail of fire.

The new attack flew towards the downed cheif. A boom followed a bright light that engulfed the cheif, releasing a shockwave that shook him in the air.

As the dust cleared, he looked down and saw the body of the orc cheif, completely burnt and completely dead.

[Created new skill: Sin bomb]

He slowly descended,his wings flapping and fluttering progressively slower until he reached the ground.

He let out a breath and as he relaxed, the flames started to dissipate and the consecutive attack bonus disappeared. His wings relaxed against his back, spreading out and down like a cape before curling around his form, resembling a cloak.

Checking the system screen he noticed he only had a little over ten seconds left in his transformation.

Looking at the few stragglers that were still holding on, he picked up a stone, throwing it at one as hard as he could, finishing it off before dashing towards the shaman.

Looking down he could see it trembling like a leaf as it stared up at him in fear.

"Your soul could have been useful"

He didn’t know whether it heard him or was just terrified of his voice but it finally stumbled to the ground on its knees.

Grabbing its head, he squeezed, popping it like a grape and watching the rest of its body fall to the ground.

About ten seconds left.

He didn’t even look at the body,his gaze was on the orc shaman’s staff.

He bent over to pick it up

Feeling a jolt, he wanted to drop it but before he could he watched as it turned to dust in his hands.

Seeing the notification that he had replenished some energy, he was displeased. It would have been better if Moirai had gotten to study it first.

Speaking of which.

He started blasting at the remaining survivors, killing them off one by one.

By the end of it all, his time was up. He started to revert back to his more human appearance, becoming notably smaller and less horrifying to look at.

"Where IS that stupid codex anyway?"

***********

"So,you know Z?"

"Zee? Cute nickname. He never mentioned me?"

"They... don’t talk much about..."

She looked at the mark on Beatrix, and then at Raven.

"Right, he’s ashamed of us"

"That’s not true"

Bea rebuffed

Raven snorted with a playful expression.

"Though I suppose the better question is who are you?"

Jade felt like the question wasn’t as simple as it sounded but still answered

"I’m a student here"

"Yes,yes. So is everyone else"

Raven suddenly stepped closer, looking at her face intently.

Jade stepped back cautiously.

"You look so familiar"

"Uh... what..."

Raven suddenly leaned back, spinning around.

"Ugh, alright this conversation is getting majorly dry. Wanna get some ice cream?"

"It’s... almost eleven"

"Yes! Ice cream!"

Jade and Bea replied before staring at each other.

"Oh, come on"

Bea begged

"Yeah,jeez. Eleven? Only that? And you’re already in your pajamas? Come on, live a little "

Raven said, piling on the pressure.

Jade sighed, thinking. Part of her felt this could possibly be a trap, the other part wanted to have an actual conversation with Raven.

"Fine"

"Awesome!"

Raven said, kicking the pillow Jade had swapped for Beatrix into the room and closing the door.

"Come on,I know a 24hour spot close by"

Jade sighed and followed behind her.

A few minutes later they were outside the school, walking in silence.

"So. How’s things with them?"

"Huh?"

"You’re wearing one of their hoodies so I’m guessing good "

Jade looked at herself unconsciously.

"It’s a loan. He gave it to me when I passed out inside a dungeon and I haven’t had a chance to return it "

Raven seemed intrigued,her gold and purple eyes darting to the side

"I bet there’s a story there. Looks like you school kids are tougher than I thought"

"What?"

Raven pointed to her

"You look tiny but I feel like you’re pretty tough. You don’t seem at all spooked by me,plus, I haven’t seen you shiver once"

Hearing that, Jade took another look at herself and realized that she had forgotten to change. She hadn’t even noticed

All she had on was a thin shirt,shorts and Zen’s hoodie. She could clearly feel the cold night air,in fact she felt like it was more intense against her sensitive skin than normal.

Despite that,it... didn’t seem to bother her.

"We’re coming up on the place"

She quickly brought her head up, ignoring the realization. It wasn’t anything serious anyway, she’d been training since she entered the academy, her body was probably just getting stronger.

She had to focus on what was in front of her.

What exactly did this Raven girl want?

Behind them,a shadow glided over the night sky, invisible to the eye and completely silent, the light of the moon reflecting the three girls in its eyes