Autophagy

"Attack! My beauties... Bring me his head!" Andres ordered. The dark blobs wobbled in their place for some time. When they were finally able to understand what he was saying, they jumped towards Song Lei one by one.

'Shit!' Song Lei shouted in his head. He took a step backward and swung the cursed knife at one of the approaching blobs. His knife cut through the blob in one motion. As his knife ripped the blob in two, the blob dissipated into the air.

[Congratulations! You've managed to exorcise a "Summoned Collective Beast" You've gained Exp!]

Right as Song Lei finished the dark blob off, a system notification appeared.

'So they can give Exp too huh?' Song Lei thought. A small smile formed on his lips.

Seeing that their teammate had been killed, the blobs stopped in their tracks and spread around to surround Song Lei. However, Song Lei wouldn't let them do what they wanted. If he wasn't the proactive one, he would eventually lose. These dark blobs had endless stamina. No matter how long he stalled, they wouldn't get tired.

Song Lei picked one of the dark blobs as a target and charged at it. These dark blobs seemed to have a collective consciousness of some sort. Song Lei wondered if they were being controlled directly by Andres or if they had their own minds. The blob Song Lei attacked didn't move from its place. Instead, it stood still.

As Song Lei cut the dark blob in two, he felt a huge force crashing on his cheek.

'Fuck!' Song Lei shouted in his head. He spitted out some blood and turned around. 'Uh...'

The dark blobs, using the extra time created by the other two, had started jumping all around the room, bouncing off of the walls. If they were just bouncing off of the walls, Song Lei could probably manage to dodge a lot of those attacks. However, they were also using each other to bounce around, forming a system almost impossible for a human to predict.

Seeing that he didn't have the chance to protect himself from these monsters, Song Lei turned around to look at Andres.

Andres was silently watching him and the dark blobs deal with each other. Song Lei ignored the dark blobs that were trying to hit him and kicked the ground.

"Catch this!" He shouted at Andres. Andres, who was clearly surprised, raised his hand and ordered the dark veins to form a wall in front of him. Song Lei quickly turned his body and rushed back at the dark blobs.

'I guessed right!' Song Lei thought. He had attacked Andres to distract him from the dark blobs. As soon as Andres turned his attention towards the dark veins, his summons became unable to move as smoothly as before. 'He is consciously controlling these! When he doesn't, they become much weaker. So he can't use these and the dark veins at the same time.'

As Song Lei confirmed his guess, he charged right at one of the blobs. As of now, there were only 7 of them left. As long as he kept fighting smartly, he could probably find his way out of this situation.

However, things wouldn't go as smoothly as Song Lei planned. Right as he killed his third dark blob, all other blobs stopped moving.

'What's going on?'

Song Lei pulled back to another corner of the room to properly see what was going on. He was a bit scared to directly rush at the blobs.

After a few seconds, all the dark blobs came together and formed into a bigger one. This bigger one almost had a 1.5 meters diameter. It could swallow an average 13-year-old easily.

"You don't seem like you'll be going down anytime soon boy. Although I planned to go easy on you, you've now lost that chance," Andres rambled. Song Lei didn't answer and opted to frown.

He readied himself for whatever was to come. He had to be more careful than ever as Andres seemed to be very powerful. Although Song Lei wasn't sure about his fighting power, Andres' factor of unpredictability made him much more dangerous. Song Lei had little to no knowledge of him.

The big summoned blob of Andres went in front of him to protect him from Song Lei's attacks.

"Let's see how you'll deal with this!" Andres shouted. Song Lei heard rustling noises.

'Shit!' Song Lei shouted in his mind. Andres was using the dark veins in the room to attack him. 'Forming the blobs into one must be putting less of a mental toll than controlling all of them separately.'

Listening carefully, Song Lei rolled to the right and started running around in the room. Although he was able to dodge the dark veins spiking out of the walls, he wasn't achieving anything by doing so.

'What's he doing to Isabel?' Song Lei asked in his head. He had actually been ignoring the fact that Isabel had been tied up to the wall by the dark veins for some time now. Those dark veins were pulsating like they were sucking something out of Isabel. 'I need to free her somehow. My only way out is this,' Song Lei decided.

As long as they worked together with Isabel, they could beat Andres. Song Lei didn't have the power to do so by himself. 'I need more levels,' he thought. Although he had a spare point on him, he couldn't spend it carelessly. He had to keep it to use as a health potion to use when he needed it.

As soon as Song Lei formed a plan inside his head, he put it into action.

"Bastard! Catch this!" Song Lei shouted. He suddenly stopped dodging the veins and rushed directly towards Andres.

"That won't work on me twice boy. Try something new," Andres sneered. Song Lei disregarded Andres' words and kept charging at him. The dark blob was standing between them, blocking Song Lei from directly attacking Andres.

While Song Lei was charging directly at him, he suddenly disappeared from Andres' sight.

"What? Where did you go, young boy?" Andres asked dumbfoundedly. He looked around the room to locate where Song Lei was. When he finally managed to do so, a drop of sweat rolled off of his head. However, just after a few seconds, a wide smile appeared on Andres' face as he said, "Haha! Young boy! You're too naive! Your knife won't be able to cut through thos- Hey!"

Andres' words were cut in half by Song Lei.

Song Lei had used the dark blob as a cover to make it look like he had disappeared from Andres' sight and rushed to Isabel's side. He started shredding the veins binding Isabel. Fortunately, these dark veins seemed to be half-spiritual. As the cursed knife was more effective against spiritual things, it was easy for Song Lei to cut through them.

"Stop! Don't do that! We can make a deal but don't free that ghost! It will kill us both if you do so!" Andres said. "You can even join us if you want! You're pretty strong and will become a high ranker in no time! Just don't free her!"

A wide smile appeared on Song Lei's face. As he cut the last vein, he turned his head towards Andres. "Well... Unfortunately, I'm already a member of the Heaven Alliance," he said.

"It doesn't matter! You can always leave that shitty place! We'll topple the Heaven Alliance in no time!" Andres kept trying to convince Song Lei.

"Oh! That's great! I don't care though," Song Lei said smugly. When he cut the last vein off, the silhouette stuck to the wall fell off. As soon as it did so, the dark veins started withering away. The whole apartment shook. Heaven and Hell Apartment started wailing. The whole consciousness of the apartment had been severely hurt and manipulated by Andres.

"You..." Andres muttered silently. His face had become red and he was sweating a lot. "I will kill you!" He shouted. He raised his hand to command the dark blob that had been protecting him to attack.

Seeing the ginormous darkness crushing down on them, Song Lei frowned. Isabel probably wouldn't recover for some time. He had to find a way to delay as long as he could.

While he was thinking about what to do about Andres' summoned monster, he felt an eerie feeling coming from his back. When he turned around to look. He realized that Isabel's silhouette was standing upright. She raised her hand towards the dark blob. A big wave of energy spread around and covered the whole dark blob. It got dissipated quickly as the room darkened.

Andres had started hyperventilating because of the pressure given off by Isabel. His robe had gotten stuck to his body because of the sweat pouring out of him. Song Lei was truly surprised by the amount of sweat this person could produce.

"Well now..." Song Lei muttered. He smiled widely at Andres.

"Do you have anything left to say...?"