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C-grades losing their head rarely meant death. The Soulshape became stronger and easier to regenerate, and each part of it was less vital than in prior grades. Even the functions of the brain were all gone by C-grade, allowing one who had lost their head to keep moving. Sensory organs still mattered, and regenerating the brain and head was a huge burden, but most humans could overcome it.

Now, this was humans. Beasts were even harder to kill, with elementals harder than beasts. Due to how survivability scaled, it meant that the other party escaping was the likely outcome unless one party was at least a good deal stronger. Assuming the losing side decided to flee, that is.

All of this ultimately resulted in that when two beings of similar or equal power met, there would be no true winner. This was doubly true when the two beings facing off were Unique Lifeforms at the peak of D-grade. Both of them could slaughter weaker C-grades easily, and even higher-tiered C-grades wanted to avoid them due to their uncertainty in killing a Unique Lifeform. For failure would mean a delayed death just a few years later when the Unique Lifeform caught up, and victory would mean nearly nothing as even if their strength was equal, then killing an opponent in a lower grade wouldn’t be rewarded by the system.

What they would instead do was take a side and support the Unique Lifeform for future benefits. That is unless there was more than one. If the supremacy of the Unique Lifeform was challenged. There would be sown doubt if supporting the Unique Lifeform was worth it, and even more so, then this would be a good chance to break off and attempt to do your own thing. To pursue personal goals… to get revenge.

The Fallen King and the Ashen Phantom Devourer had battled for nearly four hours with neither getting any advantage during the first encounter. The mountains were torn asunder, and thousands of unlucky observing beasts died in the process. After the fourth hour, the Ashen Phantom Devourer chose to disengage. A day later, it attacked again, and their fight resumed.

It was like a neverending cycle. The Ashen Phantom Devourer was a being that was near-impossible to kill. Its body was more like a living domain rather than an actual physical entity, making dealing damage incredibly difficult. At the same time, the King of the Forest had a powerful, constantly active barrier, and even if one managed to break it, all one found was a bark-like armor that offered incredible resistance to all damage.

This made it all a battle of endurance, and with both of them able to escape easily, no true winner would be found unless one party made a breakthrough or found something to truly exploit. They both knew this, which is also why they wanted to keep fighting. It was rare that a Unique Lifeform could find a being able to stand up to them and even rarer to find another Unique Lifeform. Other Unique Lifeforms were the closest they could ever get to kin, and this sparked an intense innate desire to prove themselves. Prove their Paths and prove that they were superior Unique Lifeforms.

Neither cared that their fight left a power vacuum ripe for exploitation and that those who before found themselves held back now chose to act.

William stared at the ritual circle as he operated it, karmic magic revolving around him. The oversized squirrel sat in its middle for a moment before openings its eyes, anger burning within from what it had just experienced. Not directed at William, but someone it had forgotten and now remembered. It bowed towards him before leaving, going towards the teleportation chamber.

What am I even doing?William asked himself for what felt like the umpteen time in the last… year? Years? A long time that is for sure.

Shaking his head, he decided not to think about it too much. Whenever he made his own decisions, things just turned to shit anyway, so it was better for him to just do as was told by someone wiser: his master.

The ritual circle he was operating on was one he had been working on for a good while. It had been the final requirement for his Profession Evolution Quest, and taken all of his skills to pull off. Of course, it wasn’t the only thing he could have made; all it required was for him to make something related to his profession at a sufficiently high level.

His Class Evolution Quest had also been easy. But his Race Evolution Quest was just… he didn’t get it.

Race Evolution Quest

As you reach the end of D-grade, you have walked a Path seeking perfection. A Path of discovery of yourself and what you want to be. Yet you have not found it. Without determination and vision, there is no Path. Without desire, there is no progress. Without willingness, there is no life.

Objective: Find your Path (0/1)

William had found his Path already, so he didn’t get why the fuck he hadn’t completed the quest already. If he had completed it, he would be C-grade and one step closer to being useful to his master. But no matter how much he tried to figure it out, the quest remained uncompleted. It made absolutely no sense to him, and he had asked his master, but his master just said that he had taught William enough to figure it out on his own. This only frustrated him more as he felt like he was disappointing his master.

Just focus on your work, and you can figure it out later, he told himself as he prepared for the next somewhat confused beasts to enter the ritual circle. William worked his magic as he pulled on the karmic strings and increased their strength. He gathered them almost into a ball which he used to weave a tapestry and allowed the beast to see. And see, it did.

Its eyes filled with animosity, and it even threw William an angry glance. Not that he could blame it. He had allowed it to experience something that most would perhaps want to live without, but these beasts had all requested it. Not knowing had simply been more painful than now finding out.

As for what he made them experience? Memories. Memories of their lives before the system arrived.

To say that humans had treated animals shitty before the system was an understatement. William knew that he was the furthest from a saint back then, but the crimes he had committed were nothing compared to some others. Individual researchers had killed thousands of mice, and just how many fish were caught every day? How many deer were shot and killed? How many animals hunted or farmed simply for their hides or horns?

The answer was a fucking lot. Humans had been fine treating animals like shit. What would happen if you decided to kill a mouse that snuck into your home? Nothing. What would happen if you decided to use your BB gun to shoot down two squirrels? Nothing. There were no laws against it, and if there were, the worst that happened was a fine.

At least there was no true punishment before.

Now you had a small baby squirrel that remembered seeing its parents killed by teenagers. A baby squirrel that had grown to late D-grade. William’s job was only to make them remember their entire lives and then give them an outlet and a new goal. He would find anyone related to the beasts using the karmic connections. Anyone who had hurt them or those who injured them before the system. The C-grade jellyfish would then teleport them to the vicinity of this area for them to carry out their revenge on humanity.

But… there were still questions that haunted him. He knew what he was doing. He knew what the purpose of what he was doing was. He knew the goals of Ell’Hakan and his master’s expectations. He knew what the beasts were planning and about so many things.

Yet he still didn’t know…

Why am I even doing this? Why am I helping some alien? Why is all I am doing still not enough? Why am I still afraid and still have nightmares?

And was another thing that bothered him a lot. One that had annoyed him ever since the time he went to see the Augur of Hope. A man he had killed. The Augur had greeted him without a care for their history and had shown only pity. He had then helped William find some people, but the last words he spoke as they parted still rang in his mind.

“I hope you find your Path once more. You were climbing a mountain back then, but all I see before you now is a bridge with the ropes cut.”

William hated that the Augur had to speak without actually saying anything. The last time they met, he had said that William already had a Path and now he suddenly didn’t, despite finally finding meaning with his master. Then again, the Augur was still some D-grade; what the hell did he know compared to a Primordial?

No, he just had to work on the tasks given by his master, and he was sure he would find his Path. He had wanted to visit this former girlfriend of the Malefic’s Chosen but simply did not have time due to the many tasks he was given. Not that it was a high priority.

According to Ell’Hakan, their recent encounter should put the Malefic Viper’s Chosen out of commission for at least three and a half months, with the expected time being over half a year. William did not fault the alien for not fighting the Malefic One’s Chosen outright. He was a damn monster. But he did think it a bit stupid to just piss him off like that. In fact, he was pretty damn certain Ell’Hakan’s plans would fail miserably as if there was one thing William was sure about, it was that when it came to that monster nothing ever went as expected.

Not that it was truly any of his concern. William just did as he was told.

Jake considered for a moment where he was.

He was trapped in a different space… one where One Step would not simply allow him to step out. One would have to do something special to get out – or just go crazy with destructive energies in Jake’s case – but if not, he was trapped.

Jake grinned and summoned his wings. Time to upgrade these bad boys and escape Sandy’s stomach!

He didn’t know if it was just dumb luck, but this was a perfect opportunity for him to practice. He informed Sandy of what he wanted to do, and Sandy responded by playing along. Jake felt the walls harden and the space stabilize even more than before.

Jake instantly knew escape just got a lot harder. If it was just space magic, Jake could maybe find a way with One Step, but it wasn’t just space magic. There were other concepts mixed in too. If there wasn’t, Sandy would be a Genesis Space Worm and not a Genesis Cosmic Worm, after all.

He could still probably overload Sandy with destructive mana or go ham with poisons or something, but even then, he wasn’t sure how much damage that would even do to the worm. Sandy had honestly become a bit of a monster. The sheer level of power this stomach skill required was immense, and he reckoned nearly no D-grade would be able to escape on their own.

All he could say was that he was glad Sandy was on his side. Because damn, would it be annoying to have a worm kidnap friends and family and fly away if you pissed it off. Which reminded him not to annoy Sandy too much.

Dispelling his wayward thoughts, Jake refocused his mind on the task at hand. Wings of the Malefic Viper upgrade. He knew that he had to take it in a quite different direction than it currently was. There was not a hint of space affinity or anything like that in the wings currently, and if he was being totally honest, he wasn’t even sure the upgraded version was all about space magic either. Likely there was some space magic involved, but as with many things, it was just never that simple.

Jake once more tried to correctly remember how he felt during the vision where he experienced the skill. He had definitely felt the wings be filled with energy. Way more than usual. Back then, the Viper had summoned them as phantasmal wings just to use the skill too.

As he remembered more and more, one detail stood out. The Viper had changed color to green during the process, and at first, Jake had just thought that an effect of the then-S-grade’s immense mana. But the Viper was far too good at energy control for that. So why had his body turned green? Jake also vividly remembered the Viper shooting into the distance, meaning it was not teleportation but more just insanely fast movement - movement that made space part… not helped by space as one would expect from a skill using the space affinity. Perhaps it was more related to Shadow Vault? No, that didn’t seem like it either, especially after sim-Jake said he was of no help.

He felt a bit stuck. It was clear he was missing something crucial, and he was a bit mad at himself for not focusing on the skill more during the vision back then. Okay, then again, Fang of Man and Fangs of the Malefic Viper upgrading from one vision was great, and he couldn’t fault himself too much, but still.

Jake began trying many different things as time passed. About a day went by before Sandy found a big C-grade sand lizard guarding some kind of natural formation of crystals or something. Jake had no idea what it was, but Sandy got excited and practically spat him out like he was a damn pocket monster to fight for his worm master.

Anyway.

*’DING!’ Class: [Avaricious Arcane Hunter] has reached level 179 - Stat points allocated, +10 Free Points*

*’DING!’ Race: [Human (D)] has reached level 181 - Stat points allocated, +15 Free Points*

A good bit of exercise later, and Jake was back in the stomach, where he began testing again. He tried to infuse different concepts and see if that felt right, but nothing did. The entire idea of infusing something entirely new into the wings also felt wrong. Every other upgrade had built upon what was already there. Expanded it. If it added something new, Jake could at least see it be linked with everything else in the skill. None of his current ideas were linked to any of the core functions of Wings.

As time passed and he practiced, he kept coming back to the issue of nothing he tried building upon what was already there. He tried to see if there was some hidden feature he had not discovered, some mighty flapping technique he had missed, but there was nothing. All infusing mana did was create more poison. As Jake thought this, he had a eureka moment.

He considered if the Viper hadn’t actually used any of what Jake expected… what if he had done the exact opposite? Used only what the wings already had, but in an entirely different way. In a far more extreme way.

What if he had simply pumped out a poison removing everything between him and his destination, corroding a hole through reality itself?