Chapter 1765 Bonafide Demon Slayers
'I fucking knew it. Shit was too good to be given for free.'
Eren vented his frustration with a string of curses directed at the goddess, dismayed at the apparent theft of his hard-earned Origin Force Points. If there had been a table in front of him, he might have been tempted to flip it in a fit of rage.
It seemed to him as if the goddess had offered him the Unique Skill with the sole intention of siphoning off his Origin Force reserves. While he appreciated the Skill's effects, he found fault with its reliance on the rare Stat.
He would have preferred if the Skill had tapped into the more replenishable Mana or Spirit Stats. He could recover them easily with a day of rest. So he would have had no problem using the Unique Skill more freely.
Risking exposure as the true inheritor of the Elder Ichor bloodline, Eren had turned the world of Labh Salem upside down to amass around 8000 Origin Force Points.
Though these points were still in the process of regenerating, fueled by the ongoing speculation surrounding his masked appearance in Agora, he was aware that the fervor would eventually wane.
The initial hype would yield diminishing returns over time, necessitating his constant engagement in Labh Salem's affairs if he wished to employ the ocular Skill regularly.
[ Unique Skill: Unreal Reflection allows the user to temporarily create their own world inside the Skill zone. Origin Force is the foundation behind the creation of any world, which is why it has the word 'Origin' in its nomenclature.
Consequently, Origin Force acts as the vital energy source supporting the Unique Skill. Due to the intrinsic nature of the world creation process, no other Stat can be utilized to activate this Unique Skill.]
'Wow. Now you're even monitoring how I feel?'
Eren muttered under his breath, expressing further discontent after perusing the clarification from Menaka's Blessing. A new prompt materialized promptly.
[Menaka's Blessing provides automated responses to address any queries users may have regarding unlocked Skills or items acquired through the interface. Rest assured, user information is safeguarded at all costs. This service is complimentary, offering users an opportunity to enhance their understanding of their Skills.]
'Now that's just creepy.'
Eren grimaced in irritation before dismissing the Spectral notification. He opted to delve into the details of the Unique Skill later, taking advantage of the goddess's free informational service. However, a more pressing matter occupied his thoughts, evident in the contemplative furrows on his forehead.
'Well… If the Unique Skill is gone, I'm kinda fucked. Then—'
Eren quickly checked out his base attributes and found out that except for the Spirit Stat, all his other Stats were dangerously low. His Mana was basically zero. It meant that he wouldn't be able to cast Skill enough times for him to continue his battle with Jen.
With the Unique Skill's effect gone, he wouldn't be able to stop Jen from using her own set of Skills either. And she still had plenty of revival tries left. Eren narrowed his eyes as he realized he had fallen into a different kind of trap.
'Damn. I would have killed this crazy cat lady a thousand times over if I knew that the Unique Skill would die on me like that. Since I can't kill her for good, I need to come up with a different game plan,' Eren decided in his head and dropped Jen's lifeless form.
Eren took a few steps back from his earlier position and patiently waited for Jen to revive herself using the Blessing. At first, Jen refused to revive herself right away. But seeing that Eren wasn't doing anything to her, she was compelled to make use of the lifeline once again.
Eren and Horen watched as Jen's mangled body was covered in a bright golden light. The mangled body parts healed and the missing parts regrew in quick succession. It was as if the divine blessing was resetting Jen's existence anew.
Jen opened her eyes abruptly as soon as her soul was pulled into her body, which had been completely healed from wounds given to her by Eren. She quickly shot up in her two feet and created a safe distance from Eren.
"What… What are you planning to do with me?" she asked Eren warily as she looked at him with a gaze tinged with masked panic. The earlier confidence she had about her Rogue-specific Skills and her divine Blessing was nowhere to be found. One could say that Eren had beaten her into submission.
"Payback," Eren responded casually before pointing a finger at his unconscious teammate. "Your intervention has cost us quite a bit of time and nuisance. Plus, my teammate has been suffering from a damaged mana core due to our constant battles. Clearly, we are not as efficient of a team anymore as we were before you poked your nose in our affairs. So—" Eren trailed off his sentence, letting Jen figure out what he wanted from her on her own.
"You… Do you want me to carry your team?" Jen asked with a voice that was mixed with fear and doubt. She was taken aback by how right she was when Eren nodded at her statement.
"You intervened in our hunt just to pass your time, didn't you?" Eren narrowed his eyes on Jen as he responded.
"Your team was capable of passing the test even if you had skipped on claiming our hunt for yourself. After inspecting your soul up close, I can tell that you have plenty of trump cards you haven't even shown to your allies.
You just wanted to have some fun tonight. It didn't help that we made your intervention that tempting with the number of demons we killed," Eren said calmly as if he was reading an excerpt from a book.
Jen felt exposed because of Eren's words. She realized that Eren had peeped into her Soul Space and extracted some of her memories as well as emotions while the Unique Skill's effect was active.
"It's unfortunate that Raif had to die because of your misadventure," Eren shrugged as if he had nothing to do with the man's death. "With just you and that runaway Elementalist, it would be a bit difficult for you to stay at the top position of the test.
However, if we join hands, things would be easy to deal with for both of us. I know that with a bigger team, the profit margins per candidate dwindle. But that is something we have to deal with by hunting more fiercely," Eren said as he observed Jen's ever-changing expressions carefully.
"Of course, you can refuse. But then I'll have to kill you," Eren's tone turned icy cold as he looked at Jen with a predatory gaze. Without the support of his Unique Skill, Eren was not a threat to Jen in his current condition. However, he didn't let that stop him from acting tough all the same.
"Al… alright," Jen agreed after some hesitation. Briefly toying with the idea of retaliating against Eren on the final day, she abandoned the thought upon meeting the fearful gaze of his emerald-green eyes.
Eren, despite struggling to stand, permitted Jen to contact Yugi. He almost compelled the evasive Elementalist to approach him.
"Kekekeke. Look what the cat dragged in," Eren greeted Yugi as she and Jen approached him. Swiftly forcing Yugi into compliance, he achieved complete suppression and cooperation from his ex-enemies.
Things were a bit easy for Eren and the rest after the end of the fourth day. They found plenty of demons to hunt. And they managed to repel any group of candidates who came to them with nefarious intentions.
In fact, it was Eren who decided to pull the same move Jen had pulled on him. His choice for selecting such groups to "feed" on was even more thorough and foolproof than Jen's. Surprisingly, he didn't have trouble convincing them to his seemingly unreasonable demands either.
'I… I tried to bully the guy who makes his living out of bullying others,' Jen thought to herself as she watched Eren in action.
Eren didn't have to kill any other candidate after Raif's death, which was a feat because more and more three-person teams were forced to group up with each other as the test progressed.
He seriously injured a candidate or two in such groups. And this action was enough for the groups to back off on their own.
Most candidates who had come to take the test were smart. They could identify the threat that was right in front of their face and take action accordingly.
At first, she and Yugi were quite uncomfortable with teaming up with Eren after he had killed their ex-teammate. But they were manipulated into coming around. All Eren needed was time and a set of right words.
With this forceful yet effective approach, Eren secured his position within the top 20 candidates who successfully completed the test. His teammates, Horen and Vasco, also emerged victorious.
Unsurprisingly, even Jen and Yugi managed to clear the test as well, solidifying their status as certified Demon Slayers by the conclusion of the seventh day.
Jen and Yugi quickly distanced themselves from Eren after they were out of the isolated dimension. They practically ran away, not allowing Eren to turn them into his acquaintances.
They hoped that they would never have to cross paths with the demon they had seen live in action during the course of the last few days.
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