Ultimate Gacha System: Reborn As A Mob in My Favorite Game

Chapter 124: Ryoki, The Second King

He looked exactly as he had on the roof of the Star Tower Building, in the exact moment when he had sadistically thrown Regret Klaus off the building.

The god was a tall, impeccably elegant man with long flowing silver hair that caught the pale sunlight perfectly.

His luminescent glowing white eyes were completely devoid of human empathy, radiating arrogance.

He wore a pristine, highly elaborate suit of form-fitting, overlapping silver armor.

The metal was adorned from shoulder to boot with intricate glowing white runes that hummed audibly with a dense divine power.

The Second Soul king stood perfectly still.

His silver-gauntleted hands rested casually, lazily on the ornate jewel-encrusted pommel of an elegant thin silver-hilted rapier currently sheathed at his hip.

He didn’t look like a grizzled warrior preparing for a brutal grinding deathmatch in the dirt... He looked like an untouchable aristocrat waiting patiently for a filthy peasant to finish groveling in the mud...

Klaus narrowed his dark eyes.

He shifted his weight, testing the traction of the yellow sand beneath his boots and it held firm.

He didn’t have his spatial ring on his finger with all his other swords...

He didn’t have his health potions or his gear... He was completely unarmed but didn’t matter.

He prepared to call upon his internal reserves.

He prepared to reach into his core and drag the heavy blinding white gravity of his Soul Mana out into the open air to forge a weapon of pure magic.

But before Klaus could even clench his fists to initiate the draw, a sudden, incredibly strange sensation fluttered in the very center of his broad chest.

It felt exactly like a small heartbeat that absolutely did not belong to him.

POP!

A small highly condensed spectral form violently ejected itself directly out of Klaus’s sternum.

The sudden ejection was accompanied by a completely absurd puff of translucent pink smoke.

Klaus physically flinched backward in genuine shock.

His combat instincts flared, and he instantly raised his bare, muscular arms in a defensive guard, fully expecting a surprise attack or a trap spell but the spectral form didn’t attack him.

It did a rapid, spinning, mid-air somersault, completely and utterly defying the physical gravity of the arena, and landed squarely, perfectly on the very top of Klaus’s messy dark hair with a soft weightless thump.

Klaus froze. He didn’t move a single muscle.

He slowly, hesitantly reached a large hand up toward the top of his head.

His calloused fingers brushed against something small, solid, and incredibly, confusingly familiar.

"Finally!" a sharp distinctly female voice complained incredibly loudly directly from the top of his head, right next to his ear. "Do you have any idea how completely, mind-numbingly boring it is in there, My King?! It’s just a bunch of creepy, frozen, silent statues staring at me all this time! I was going insane!"

Klaus’s brain stalled.

He reached up, grabbed the small, vibrating entity firmly by the scruff of her spectral, ragged collar, and pulled her down in front of his face so he could look at her directly.

It was Valeria...

Her big glowing, angry red eyes glared at him indignantly and her tiny, spectral red boots kicked aggressively in the air as he held her suspended by the collar in front of his face.

"Valeria?" Klaus gaped.

His jaw physically dropped in complete bewilderment.

He was standing in the middle of an ancient colosseum and he was soon going to be locked in a lethal winner-takes-all deathmatch with a tyrant god wearing silver armor... and it was just now she chose to show up?

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"I’ve been in your soul, idio— My King!" Valeria huffed, crossing her tiny translucent arms over her chest and pouting fiercely.

She managed to look incredibly annoyed despite currently dangling helplessly in his grip like a caught kitten.

"In my soul?" Klaus repeated, blinking rapidly against the harsh sunlight of the ruined arena.

His dark eyes remained fixed on the miniature, glowing red entity. "Doing what?"

"Keeping watch over the statues, obviously!" Valeria declared proudly, puffing out her tiny chest so far she nearly tipped over backward in his hand.

She adjusted the strap of her miniature sniper rifle over her shoulder with a sharp spectral flick of her wrist.

The "statues."

The realization hit him with the heavy weight of an iron anvil dropping into his stomach.

She was talking about his Soul Vessel.

Every single enemy he had killed and banished with his soul magic... he had harvested their souls to forcefully increase his own raw stats.

’I remember now... it seemed like I forgot a lot.’ Klaus thought while shaking his head.

The bright glowing red light radiating from her Chibi form dimmed slightly as her oversized sniper cloak drooped.

She looked down at his heavy combat boots with her tiny hands fidgeting nervously with the spectral hem of her skirt.

"It was getting really scary in there, Boss," Valeria admitted with her high-pitched voice dropping into a soft whisper that completely caught Klaus off guard.

She looked back up at him, her large, glowing red eyes filled with a profound, uncharacteristic sincerity.

"When you were fighting that man in the white room... when you were dying," Valeria explained, her tiny fists clenching tight. "The whole inner domain started shaking. The sky inside your head turned completely gray, and the ground was cracking open. I could feel your life force just... bleeding away into nothing. I tried to come out! I was banging my fists on the walls of your soul, trying to break through the glass to give you my mana, to shoot whoever was hurting you, but I couldn’t."

She sniffled, a tiny droplet of spectral red moisture forming in the corner of her eye.

"Your soul was getting so weak, the gates wouldn’t open..." Valeria whispered, her voice trembling with genuine, unadulterated fear. "I thought you were going to disappear. I thought we were all going to die in the dark without even getting to fight back. I was so worried about you, you stupid, reckless King."

Klaus stared at the tiny ghost.

Valeria didn’t wait for him to respond... She wriggled forward in his loose grip, floating slightly upward until she was completely level with his face.

She leaned in, closed her glowing eyes, and pressed her tiny translucent lips directly against his scarred cheek.

It wasn’t a physical kiss.

It felt like a tiny, warm spark of static electricity gently discharging against his skin, leaving behind a lingering, comforting hum of spiritual energy.

"Please don’t hurt yourself like that again..."

Klaus’s eyes widened slightly.

A sudden unfamiliar warmth bloomed in the center of his chest. He opened his mouth to speak or to thank the tiny warden of his soul, but before he could utter a single syllable, his internal mana core violently protested the tender moment.

BZZZ-ZAP!

A sharp loud crackle of raw lightning violently erupted from the direct center of Klaus’s chest, right where Valeria had just emerged.

A bright blinding flash of volatile blue-white plasma illuminated the fabric of his dark combat shirt.

The enslaved Lightning Spirit began to pulse aggressively against his ribs.

It didn’t possess a humanoid form like Valeria and it couldn’t speak English but as a master of the soul, Klaus could read the emotional intent radiating from the crackling orb of plasma.

And the intent was violently jealous possessiveness.

’MINE!’

The lightning spirit pulsed, sending a vibrating shockwave of static electricity straight up Klaus’s spine, causing the hairs on his arms to stand completely on end.

The elemental wasn’t angry at Valeria.

It was completely focused on the silver-haired god standing across the arena. The lightning spirit throbbed with a volatile tsundere-like rage, loudly transmitting its territorial claim over Klaus’s life.

’NOBODY KILLS THIS MEATBAG BUT ME! IF ANYONE IS FRYING HIS HEART TO ASH, I HOLD THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS! NOT SOME PREENING, SILVER-HAIRED PARASITE! LET ME OUT! LET ME BURN HIM!’

Klaus winced, rubbing the center of his chest as the static shock made his pectoral muscles forcefully twitch.

"Great..." Klaus muttered dryly.

He looked down at his own glowing blue chest.

"I have a sociopathic, tsundere lightning bolt living in my heart... Just exactly what I needed today..."

"Hey! Back off, sparky!" Valeria scolded immediately, turning her tiny head and glaring fiercely down at Klaus’s chest, wagging her finger at the blue glow. "I was here first! You’re just a glorified battery, so shut up and wait your turn!"

The lightning spirit let out a low threatening rumble of thunder in response, but the blue glow slowly faded back into the depths of his Soul, begrudgingly accepting the hierarchy of the inner domain.

Klaus shook his head with a genuine albeit strained half-smile crossing his face.

For a fraction of a second, the crushing tension of the ancient gladiatorial arena had been entirely lifted then, Valeria gasped.

Her glowing red eyes darted past Klaus’s broad shoulder, zeroing in on the opposite side of the blood-stained yellow sand.

Her tiny body vibrated with a sudden outrage. Her translucent red hair flared wildly, whipping around her face like a wildfire.

She forcefully wriggled the rest of the way out of Klaus’s loose grip, executing a rapid, flawless mid-air backflip.

She landed perfectly back on top of his messy dark hair, her tiny spectral boots anchoring themselves to his scalp.

Valeria stomped her boots furiously into his hair, raising her miniature sniper rifle and pointing a tiny trembling finger directly at the Second King.

"Yes!" Valeria shrieked.

Her furious voice echoed loudly, bouncing off the ruined, towering stone bleachers of the silent, sun-baked colosseum.

"That’s him! That’s the bastard! That’s the Second Soul King, Ryoki!"

Ryoki, who had been watching the entirely bizarre, incomprehensible exchange between the mortal and his internal spirits with a look of mild confusion, slowly raised a single, flawless silver eyebrow.

The god’s luminescent white eyes narrowed slightly, trying to discern if this was some sort of obscure advanced psychological warfare tactic.

"He stole my panties!" Valeria accused at the absolute top of her spectral lungs, pointing her finger so hard she nearly fell off the edge of Klaus’s forehead.

The dramatic life-or-death tension of the ancient arena was instantly ruined.

The hot dry wind howling through the shattered obsidian pillars seemed to physically stop blowing.

Klaus choked violently on his own spit.

His dark eyes bugged completely out of his head.

He coughed, slapping a hand against his chest as he looked straight up at the Chibi sniper furiously stomping in his hair, and then looked across the fifty yards of sand at the ancient, terrifying, silver-armored god.

Ryoki physically cringed.

The silver-haired tyrant actually took a frantic half-step backward in the yellow sand with a look of horrified disgust twisting his flawless features.

"I beg your pardon?" Ryoki scoffed loudly.

His normally smooth voice cracked slightly, pitching upward with indignation.

He looked at the tiny, glowing red spirit sitting on Klaus’s head as if she were a putrid plague-ridden cockroach that had just crawled onto his pristine silver dining table.

"I am a divine being," Ryoki stated with his silver-gauntleted hand flying up to press against his chest in offense. "I am a master of the soul domain. I am an ancient monarch who has ruled this tower for centuries. I most certainly, unequivocally, do not do Spirit Panties!"

"Liar!" Valeria went on a furious rapid-fire rant, stomping her tiny boots so furiously into Klaus’s scalp that he actually felt the friction. "I was sleeping perfectly fine in my own designated corner of the soul vessel! I had my blankets set up! I was minding my own business! And then you had to go and forcefully fragment your creepy, slimy, disgusting god-soul directly into our domain to hijack the trial!"

Valeria leaned over Klaus’s forehead, shaking her tiny fist at the god.

"You rummaged through our stuff!" she accused wildly. "You violated the sanctity of the inner domain! You knocked over the statues! I know it was you! You’re the only one who broke in! Give them back, you degenerate pervert!"

"I did not touch your wretched garments, you filthy little ghost!" Ryoki snapped back aggressively, entirely losing his composure.

The god of souls was actually allowing himself to be baited into a screaming argument with a miniature deceased zombie.

"Sigh..."

He smoothed his hands frantically down the front of his pristine, glowing silver armor, taking a deep calming breath to forcibly rein in his fractured dignity.

Ryoki closed his eyes for a full three seconds. When he opened them again, the luminescent white glow had returned, looking colder and sharper than before.

He firmly ignored the shrieking Chibi stomping on Klaus’s head.

He refused to acknowledge her existence or her completely baseless accusations any further, deciding that engaging with the spirit was beneath his divine station.

The Second King shifted his piercing luminescent white eyes back to Klaus.

The apathetic arrogance returned fully to his gaze, sweeping meticulously over Klaus’s heavily muscled physical form, assessing the peak condition of the body he intended to steal.

"Welcome, Third King," Ryoki announced softly.

His voice echoed effortlessly across the blood-stained sands, carrying the heavy dual-toned authority of his overwhelming power.

The very air vibrated with his words.

"I must admit, you are full of genuinely fascinating surprises," Ryoki continued, pacing slowly, lazily to his right with his silver boots leaving perfect impressions in the sand. "You survived the mental fracturing of the white void... You managed to successfully integrate with your Regret avatar before I could completely digest the last of your lifeforce. That is a feat no previous host has ever accomplished. Every single test candidate before you broke under the weight of their own simulated grief."

Klaus didn’t respond to the grand welcome.

He stood perfectly still in the hot sun.

His dark eyes locked dead onto the tyrant, tracking his every microscopic movement.

Klaus’s mind moved like a hyper-focused supercomputer, analyzing the exact fifty-yard distance between them, the uneven cratered terrain of the sand, and the relaxed open posture of his elegant enemy.

He was searching for a weakness... a blind spot or even a tell in the god’s armor.

"But what surprises me the most," Ryoki continued, coming to a halt and taking a slow deliberate step forward in the sand, "is the fundamental nature of your soul."

Ryoki raised his silver-gauntleted hand, tapping his temple.

"When I invaded your inner domain to build the foundational architecture of the trial," Ryoki explained, his voice taking on a clinical, inquisitive tone. "I saw your memories and I saw the entirety of your past."

Ryoki’s luminescent eyes widened slightly in mock wonder.

"I saw the towering glass buildings that scraped the clouds. I saw the massive, horseless carriages made of painted metal that moved faster than the wind. I saw the glowing screens of light that you stared into for hours on end, hiding from the sun."

Ryoki tilted his head, a mocking, incredibly condescending smirk slowly curling his flawless lips.

"You are clearly not from this world, Klaus," Ryoki deduced smoothly. "You are an anomaly. A stray, displaced soul dragged violently from a completely different, entirely alien reality, just to forcefully fill the empty seat of the King because the world ran out of suitable candidates here."

Ryoki let out a short dismissive laugh.

He shook his silver-haired head slowly, side to side, as if he were deeply disappointed in the low quality of his destined opponent.

"And yet, despite coming from a world with such bizarre, advanced mechanics," Ryoki mocked. "Despite possessing the memories of a society that has seemingly conquered nature... your regrets are so incredibly... trivial."

The god sneered, his upper lip curling in disgust.

"So utterly, painfully pathetic."

Klaus’s jaw tightened instantly.

The muscles in his neck jumped.

He didn’t rise to the bait but the temperature of the air immediately surrounding his body plummeted.

He felt Valeria instantly stop stomping on his head.

The Chibi sniper went perfectly still, sensing the sudden dangerous drop in Klaus’s internal temperature, feeling the raw pressure of the Soul Mana beginning to aggressively churn within his core.

"I have seen the regrets of the legendary warriors born in this world," Ryoki boasted grandly, gesturing broadly with his open hand to the ruined massive stone colosseum rising up around them. "I have fought candidates who were the predators of their eras."