Book 5: Chapter 28

The patchwork monstrosity came faster than before as Aaron backed away, practically shrugging off a rain of bullets from Ernest.

The cowboy had recovered and was some distance away, popping off shots in quick succession. And even though they were blasting considerably large chunks out of the golem, it hardly seemed to care.

“Aether, I smell it in you,” the golem roared as it neared, inhaling the deathly scent as its massive fist swung down and around, flailing hopelessly to hit the evasive form of Aaron.

“Gonna have to do better than that,” Aaron said as he dodged two strikes and phased through a third.

Even as its strength continued to increase, more corpses being drawn into its matted flesh by the second, the golem still looked clumsy and outclassed by Aaron.

It wasn’t fair, though. Aaron could see its moves before it made them.

But that wasn’t necessarily a recipe for killing the creature. He knew by now that the golem didn’t like having its soul attacked. But with all the corpses around, it would take some time to cut through that many souls if it just kept sucking in new ones to replenish what it lost.

Aaron’s food supplies were stocked up, and his core was running better than ever, cycling through energy and restoring reserves almost as quickly as they were drained out. But that didn’t mean he necessarily wanted to mindlessly test his endurance against this ceaseless monstrosity. Not only that, but this was an opportunity to learn a thing or two about countering Darius’ creations.

Bouncing back across the broken landscape as the creature went mad, breaking earth beneath its giant fists, and sending deep fissures through the rock that cracked it in two, Aaron considered his next move.

He almost had to remind himself that he was a shinigami at times. His physical self hadn’t changed when he evolved, and he had already commanded good control over aether. And as such, the way he felt hadn’t changed too much.

But at that moment, he was reminded of his [ Reap ] Skill. He had been using it passively to recover aether from his kills for a while now, and when layered over his myriad other energy recovery techniques, it was just one more method of expanding his endurance. Which was why he didn’t think too deeply about it often.

But perhaps it could be more?

Focusing on the Skill, he fired off a [ Bombardier Fist ] at a pile of corpses. The attack exploded into flames, destroying dozens of bodies, and to his delight, he felt the rush of aether pouring into him.

Looks like it worked.

Meanwhile, the golem was still relentlessly trying to hit him with everything it had, and hadn’t realized at first, what he was doing. But as Aaron leaped around the battlefield, reaping more and more souls, it caught on.

“What are you doing?” The golem hissed. “You sully my feast! Those are mine!”

The golem didn’t appear overly intelligent, but it was smart enough to know that this was a problem. So instead of continuing its flailing, it turned and ran back toward the city.

“Not this again!” Aaron shouted. If the fight dragged on out here, it was no big deal. But if it was drawn into the city, there was no telling how much damage might be done. “Ernest, let’s take that fuckers legs out!”

He didn’t hear a reply; instead, he rushed toward it, but before reaching it, he heard the gun blasts. And the moment Ernest’s bullets slammed into its knees, he followed up with haymakers, blasting the stubborn golem's legs right off.

But of course, it didn’t end there. The relentless creature was already repairing itself.

“Fucking give up already!”

Increasingly frustrated, Aaron followed up with a [ Soul Shattering Strike ], empowered by his new gauntlets, and crashed down upon it with a rage of aether, destroying its soul. But the damn thing just took another.

At least they had stopped it before the walls. However, even as the battle swung further in their direction, Aaron knew they couldn’t let up. The damn patchwork monstrosity was hardy enough that if it reached the city again, it could do real damage before they could take it down, not to mention all the souls it could devour.

Activating his mana anchors, imbuing tremendous amounts of mana into his gauntlets, and expanding their power, he entered a daze as he continued throwing strikes, mostly aimed at its limbs, chopping it apart as quickly as it could reform.

But he hadn’t given up on finding a better way to beat it, and decided to outlast it.

Even as his fists flew at the creature, he split his soul from his body and wandered away from it.

Okay, let’s see if this works.

He was limited in what he could do in his soul form. And the only energy form available to him was aether, but [ Reap ] was a shinigami Skill… And just as he suspected, it worked.

In his soul form, he swung down on a corpse, severing its soul, breaking its ties to their world, releasing it into the aether, and giving himself a boost of power in the process.

Aaron grinned. Just like he had hoped. And he got to work, busily releasing souls, drawing in their aether, weakening the golem in the process.

He could hear the patchwork monstrosity roaring with rage, but it could do little as bullets and fists blew its body apart as quickly as it could reform.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But even the simple golem wasn’t about to keep trying the same thing over and over again, hoping for different results. As its body was blown apart, its separated flesh surrounded Aaron’s body and in an instant, flew at him.

Had his consciousness been present in his body, he’d have easily dodged the attack, even with so many clumps of flesh flying at him. But he wasn’t.

The golem literally began to rebuild itself with Aaron inside of it, and he could feel it activating some kind of Skill, presumably to consume him, like it did everything else.

Instead of fighting back, as he felt the golem’s Skill had some defensive mechanisms to stop what it consumed from blowing it up from inside, Aaron activated his Reverse Mana anchors, sucking in the aether and mana from the golem’s Skill.

The patchwork monstrosity roared again, and a second later, it spat him out, and a split second after that, a powered-up haymaker blew its head into pieces.

Bullets followed, and once more, the golem was in pieces. The creature’s follow-up plan seemed to be to almost split itself into two, tethered together by strings of flesh. One half was used like a shield to absorb their attacks, while the other half recovered.

Aaron, on the other hand, was still busily reaping souls. But even in his soul form, he could feel his chest thudding with power. His core was in overdrive from all the mana and energy it had been blasting into the golem and absorbing through regeneration and other means. And the moment he let his mind momentarily reconnect with his physical form, he got an influx of messages. The battle was proving fruitful, and his mana anchors had expanded at an ever-increasing speed.

You have gained insight into a possible upgrade path for Mana Anchors. Current discovered upgrade paths:

Streamlined Mana Anchors (15%)

Partitioned Mana Anchors (45%)

Reverse Mana Anchors (20%)

Elemental Shift (Void) (15%)

Expanded Mana Anchors (15%)

Imbuing Mana Anchors (20%)

Detached Mana Anchors (10%)

Combined Mana Anchors (10%)

Focused Mana Anchors (15%)

Diffusive Mana Anchors (5%)

But even with the influx of messages, he didn’t stop reaping for a second. He could already feel that the golem was now struggling to draw in aether and vitality from the corpses around it.

Seeing its options dwindling before its eyes, it tried one last pathetic attempt at reaching the city. He was confident he could beat this thing, but there were many souls within it, and Aaron wasn’t going to let the golem reach it. Not just because he didn’t want anybody dying on his watch, but also because he didn’t need to give the golem any more corpses to feed upon.

As he reaped the last of the souls, he merged back with his body, and drew on massive amounts of mana, pushing his focused mana anchors to their limit, narrowing the paths his mana took as it exited his body, and it exploded out into a superpowered [ Soul Shattering Strike ] that completely disintegrated the golem’s soul in a single strike.

With no souls to drag in, the golem didn’t even blink. Its body had recovered from the last attack, completely healed, but there was no light on. It simply fell forward, an empty vessel, its eyes white.

You killed Patchwork Monstrosity!

Bonus Experience rewarded for killing a monster of a higher level than yourself!

[ Precise Bombardier Pugilist ] has LEVELED UP!

145 → 149

You have gained insight into a possible upgrade path for Mana Anchors. Current discovered upgrade paths:

Streamlined Mana Anchors (15%)

Partitioned Mana Anchors (45%)

Reverse Mana Anchors (20%)

Elemental Shift (Void) (15%)

Expanded Mana Anchors (15%)

Imbuing Mana Anchors (20%)

Detached Mana Anchors (10%)

Combined Mana Anchors (10%)

Focused Mana Anchors (20%)

Diffusive Mana Anchors (5%)

“More upgrades? Well, I can’t complain about that, now can I?” Aaron smiled at the notifications.

“That bastard was almost as stubborn as you,” Ernest said, appearing at his side and puffing smoke. “But that looks like it was the last of them. Darius is running low on options, hahah.”

Councillor Lark

As arranged, the councilor was waiting in the alley. A new defence bill had been brought before the council, moving the main defences to another wall, and a few minor bribes, and he was able to easily clear the nearby guards.

It was almost too easy. All she had to do was make it over one unguarded wall, and with the chaos unfolding beyond them, he had little doubt she could do it.

A moment later, he spotted the cloaked figure rushing down and waved her over.

“There you are,” she said as she approached. “Good. You’re not entirely useless.”

“Oh, come now. What kind of greeting is that? Don’t answer. Follow me. Let’s get off the streets before anybody sees us.”

Lark led her down the alley, then turned into another, and into a home. “Down here,” he said, rushing down a flight of stairs and into the basement.

“You lost your gait?”

Lark looked back at her. “The old man veneer makes people think I’m harmless,” he said, smiling.

Passing through the basement, they made their way into an underground network of tunnels, where Lark finally slowed.

“Okay, that’s better. No one will find us down here. That was an impressive battle, Agatha. And that, flesh golem? Quite the valuable sacrifice, no? Can your master really afford to lose such a powerful minion for a mere distraction?”

“Some sacrifices are necessary,” Agatha replied as she pulled down her cowl. “Darius can always make more. What’s important is seeing his objectives completed. There are bigger things going on than you realize.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are.”

“On that note,” Agatha said, extending her hand, and within it, several balls of flesh were wiggling freely as if they were alive.

“Those… Are they what I think they are?”

Agatha nodded. “Yes. And remember what you promised us. You said you could lead us to the other councilors. You had best be able to deliver on that promise.”

Lark swallowed, his gaze fixed on the eerily wiggling balls of flesh. “I can. As I said I could. Come, let’s keep moving. But one thing, perhaps we should…”

“Perhaps we should–what?”

“We should wait until that man has left the city. He might sense something if we put our plan into action while he is here.”

Agatha held his gaze a moment, and then nodded. “Fine. But we complete the plan as discussed the moment he has left. I have given my word to Darius himself. We cannot fail.”

“Right, as soon as he has left,” Lark agreed.