Warlock of War: My Ares System

With the power of the dark energy, I was able to raise my stats by a few points while also upgrading a few of my skills. For example, [Complete Shadow Control] had become [Complete Shadow Magic]. In addition, [Presence of Darkness] had become [Presence of the True Night]. 

“I’m becoming more and more of an emo lord…” I scoffed, drifting my eyes upwards. 

There was one thing that terrified me about this place and that was the surface. Sure, I was excited about knowing that there was actually something above me, but once my senses had scraped the sea foam and rushing water, the atmosphere completely crumbled and dismantled my senses in an instant. 

It was terrifyingly powerful and that was the only thing holding me back from teleporting me up there with the [Portal of Darkness]. I was sure that if I went up there, my entire body would crumble… yet this curiosity of mine had been fermenting over the course of a year and just like alcohol, without popping the top once and getting a whiff of that bitter goodness… it was bound to explode eventually. 

“[Portal of Darkness],” I muttered, activating the only skill that had a strange portion to it. It was incomplete or as the system calls it, “partial” which I thought was a bad way to describe it since it was more incomplete. Instead of creating a portal with two sides, I had to create two portals, meaning I had to be aware of the location I was going to teleport. And with this knowledge, I stepped through the whirling gate of darkness and reappeared on the other side. 

The first thing that came out of the opposite end was my hand. It hurt. It really fucking hurt. It felt as if somebody was squeezing it as tight as they could possibly grip. Each bone in my hand was creaking with every minor movement that I made.

My arm then followed, the weak point of my elbow nearly snapping in half. I felt my arm practically bend the other way while my right leg stepped out. And not long after that, my entire body followed, exiting the dark portal and sinking down into the pitch-black ocean beneath me. 

From underneath the surface, the pressure was nowhere near as dense or as heavy as it was deep down in the scary waters. This allowed me to easily tread water and attempt to find any piece of land. 

Back and forth, back and forth, my head swung. My eyes darted all over the place while I spread my senses around me. In case my eyes couldn’t pick up anything through the thick smog blinding out any hint of sunlight, my senses could find something. 

“Huff… huff… huff… huff… it hurts… it hurts so fucking bad,” I groaned as each and every part of my body felt as if it was going to implode. From every angle, pressure threatened to snap the most feeble parts of my body: my joints. 

My knees, elbows, shoulders, knuckles, ankles… it all felt like they were getting squeezed by the gravity magic of some unknown force. My bones on the other hand felt brittle and sensitive to the touch. Just treading water was enough to create so much pain that I literally began to cry as I moved around. 

[Determination of A Battle-Hardened Knight] [Undying Will for The Lord]

With the help of these two skills, I was filled with an innate sense of determination. Despite the tears running down my face, I grit my teeth and closed my eyes. I couldn’t see anything past this thick and disgusting smog, so I spread my senses as far as I could in all directions. 

“Nothing… there’s nothing…” I muttered, but the skills continued to persist. If I hadn’t activated them I would have sunk back down already, but with one more push and a large gamble, I thinned out my senses to the point where it was one single string again. It pushed through the dense atmosphere until it found something… it actually found something. “Let’s fucking go… [Portal of Darkness].” 

The black swirling mass of mana and dark energy presented itself in front of me, forcing me to reach my hand through and attempt to grab onto something. Without the extra arm to help me tread water, my other three limbs were beginning to go numb from exhaustion, so I clawed my hand out once it entered the force of darkness and… 

“I’m so damn unlucky…” I muttered as the feeling of loose sand caused my grip to slide and push me under the sea foam. 

…

“*gasp*… huff… huff… huff… Shit… well… at least I know where to go now…” I muttered, wiping the loose blades of grass from my hair and sitting up. 

I had fallen back onto the island, or maybe I was just straight-up teleported. I didn’t know as I fainted as soon as the harsh reality hit me… It was almost embarrassing how much luck I have… AND THAT’S NONE! I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO LUCK! SERIOUSLY!? SAND!? 

Letting my small temper tantrum roll out, I let out a long sigh of exhaustion, despite me being miles deep in dark and polluted water. It was a bit strange that I could breathe and act pretty normal down here as I had no skills that allowed me to breathe underwater. But, as I had nothing else to go off, I brushed it off as the work of Beelzebub. 

For the next few hours, I focused on recovering. Instead of absorbing the dark energy around me, I decided to just circulate mana, increasing the rate of my regeneration and mental fortitude. This caused me to calm down and allow me to really think and plan out my next moves.  𝔬𝒱𝗅xt.𝐜𝒐𝗆

And once all of this was completed, I stretched out my body a bit and opened a portal right in front of me. The unknown beyond this swirling mass of darkness was a bit intimidating, yet with a push of curiosity and excitement, my legs carried me through.