Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Skullius gazed at the Fire Breeder that was releasing a plume of smoke from its body which was starting to change, its form shifting as the once dark scales it had started to turn into tough, sky blue coloured skin.

Its body turned bulky in the torso, the sizzling horns it had vanishing while its eyes turned dark.

From its ankles and wrists to the toes and fingers, its skin was an unsettling shade of white that caused Skullius to narrow his eyes.

This creature definitely felt like the one he had ‘created’ from the massive toad that had been summoned by Lemorine.

What was it exactly?

The creature when it finished its transformation drooled from its mouth, the fumes filled with glowing gold sparks that gushed from its body billowing wildly to around the area!

Just like the multi-limbed creature Skullius had summoned back then as well, this one was not subservient to him. It was self serving.

Its dark eyes spun in its sockets and with sonic speed, it shot into the sky with a sound akin to a thunderclap, its destination being beyond the flames where multiple civilizations still stood, waiting to be culled… or converted.

“I need to see what it’s going to do,” Skullius said.

At that moment, the figure of Ferex appeared out of thin air, opening its mouth to allow Yuyui who was inside to heave in deep breaths.

“This…is… uncomfortable…” she said with a sharp draw of breath each time.

Back when Skullius had been battling the first of the stronger Fire Breeders, he had sent a message for Ferex and Yuyui to go incognito so that they wouldn’t get killed.

At least here, none of the Cluster beasts seemed to be able to see Ferex, so the Apostle could finally feel good about himself again from his partially torn pride within the Temple of Unlusted Tears.

Skullius urged on Ferex to make room for him as well while dispelling [Silent Revelation of the Bright King].

The moment he entered, he gave the order, “Follow that thing.”

With the plume of smoke the blue creature had made, a trail to follow led the trio over to where the creature had headed, using its limited time of existence to do whatever the heck it intended to.

Notifications of millions more Experience points started to flow once more as it seemed the heralds of pain and pleasure were executing Skullius’ commands well, killing everything in sight.

Some were weaker, some were stronger, but they worked as fast as they could to net Skullius a huge bundle of kills.

…..

3 minutes later.

Ferex who had shut off his presence passed through what could be described as a city, a large city following the smoke.

“Jeez…” Skullius remarked while Yuyui covered her eyes. “What the hell did that thing do?”

Within this entire city of Fire Breeders, the dome shaped houses were obliterated, the wall that had been built around it demolished as even now, the chaos was yet to settle.

Certain things were happening.

Certain lewd, unsightly and unspeakable things.

The inhabitants of the large city ahead were all alive and somewhat well but… they moaned, they cackled and they gleefully cried out in pleasure.

EVERY single one of them without any exception.

The smoke was still thick within the city and it seemed to be the cause of this horrendously inappropriate scene that made Yuyui shake her head furiously.

Was this what it meant to be baptised to the Passion or Debauchery?

Being able to spread around this ‘epidemic’ simply by passing through?

That was ridiculous!

It seemed whatever creature he had summoned had already passed, satisfied with how it left its many victims with spinning eyes, drooling mouths and aching desires.

Skullius snapped his finger after exiting from Ferex’s mouth.

The cores of roughly a bit more than forty thousand Fire Breeders exploded, killing them while pulling on the mana that made them to form four small orbs of condensed mana that he pushed to float around his mana core.

While the cores of stronger Fire Breeders were harder to manipulate, especially from a distance, that was mostly they were conscious and actively using them as their control over their cores wrestled against Skullius’.

After making sure that this city was completely wiped out, Skullius scaled up to the tallest dome he could find which was around four hundred meters tall and looked around.

From the aerial flight he had taken before, he had pretty much seen the whole layout of the Cluster.

There were eight settlements here, four small ones, three large ones and an enormous one that looked to be as big as Inhone City.

So far, Skullius had destroyed three, one large one and two smaller ones, with two of the smaller ones being taken care of by his lustful thralls.

Then there was this one, which had been destroyed by his insubordinate creation.

Skullius however, didn’t plan on continuing to raid the populated areas as many, more powerful Fire Breeders were now scouring the land, searching for whoever was causing the chaos and the Penetrator was sure that it was only a matter of time before this weird summon was killed along with his thralls.

His plan now, was to attack the place where the Cluster General was located.

This was his chance.

The Penetrator hadn’t know that the Cluster General lived quite a distance from all the settlements.

p anda nOvel.cO,m It lived nearly three miles away from one of the remaining cities, alone and unresponsive to the chaos going on for some reason.

This hadn’t been what Skullius was aiming for in the beginning as he assumed there would be a specific area where the General would be, perhaps in one these settlements.

Now however, since he could waltz around unhindered with Ferex here, this was the perfect opportunity to spring up on the General and kill it.

The experience it would give him was insane he was sure, as from what he learned further about Clusters, the larger it was, the more mana the General had.

With his level now at 17, Skullius couldn’t imagine that he couldn’t find three levels from the Cluster General.

This was easier said than done though, killing the Cluster General that was.

Skullius’ [Greater Mana Crafter] could vaguely tell extraordinary presences even if they were outside its range.

And he could tell that the Cluster General was nothing scoff at.

The simple fact of the creature’s mana core, which was definitely beyond blue, was the main issue and one of the things that drew on [Greater Mana Crafter].

The other thing was the presence of three powerful artefacts around the location of the General.

Skullius was interested in this. At the very least, he had to see what these were.

“If I’m going to kill that sockethole, I’ll have to be prepared,” Skullius said as he sat himself down and settled his thoughts.

There was a skill that he had attained from the scroll he had been very happy to receive.

A scroll containing an array that released an already prepared spell for use on the fly.

One of the Prompt Spells, that had been mentioned by Alaris.

Skullius had used his innate ability to steal the within the Unique grade item, his level of mana manipulation back then being found sufficient for him to safely accomplish the task with little difficulty.

The spell within wasn’t what Skullius had been hyped about.

No.

It was fairly strong but not quite something he would rely on in a Cluster like this.

Nevertheless, it was a tremendously good base for what he wanted to do.

~~~

[Slaughter Fence | Lv.1]

Release a wave of carefully woven mana with intricate and precise sharp edges capable of cutting apart objects and living things, even when they guard with other skills. It uses thin surface areas on impact for the improved attack power.

Mana Requirements: 8000 Mana Points

Duration: —

Cooldown: 2 minute

~~~

The cost was definitely high for Skullius but it was worth it.

Yet, Skullius was more interested in that this was just a complex mana attack.

On some days he would be dedicated to exploring this skill, but he saw it fit to use [Unbound] over it to see how the mana aspect of it would be enhanced!

He had been interested in something like this for a while and now was his chance.

He couldn’t risk upgrading [Greater Mana Crafter] for this experiment as it was too important but this… he could definitely give it a try!

“Let’s use the entire 6000 points of Null Life Essence!” Skullius said with glee as he activated [Unbound].

[What would you like to Upgrade with ‘Unbound’?]

“Slaughter Fence,” Skullius said.

[6000 Null Life Essence points expended for ‘Permanent Random Upgrade’]

….

[‘Permanent Random Upgrade’ decided]

—

[Author’s Note]

This is the last arc before we head into the Premium Age Royale. By this arc, I mean all of Skullius’ missions. The rest of them will be a lot shorter. This is the only one with significant importance. Kind of.