"Well, I guess I'll have to figure out how to use it by myself" Utsuro said with a helpless sigh as he had tried many failed attempts to use the new attribute he got"do all of these powers only activate when death is at my front door? That's such a pain in the ass"He had three days to recover but of course he wasn't going to stay that long in fact, he was going to leave today. Utsuro sat up wincing in pain while getting off the bed. He saw neat clothes by the bedside and immediately changed into them and they fit perfectly utsuro looked into the mirror and saw that his hair had been washed and stylized and he didn't look look too bad if I do say so myself in fact, he looked handsome as his white hair that had red touches at the edges contrasted with the black fitted hoodie and black jeans with a red design on it. On the back of the hoodie there was a design. A sentence written in red. "Make money, not friends" In overall rating, he was pretty handsome would give him a 7/10. Utsuro walked out of the hospital into the bustling streets of Azaroth he had never seen such wonderful scenery so he was dazed and right above Azaroth, was Natsuphysheba or Haven as people like to call it. It was a floating island at least twice as big as Azaroth obstructing rays of the sun from shining on Azaroth. Haven was a home to the experienced,infamous and powerful awakened and a school to the inexperienced beginner awakened. Utsuro spent five minutes observing his surroundings before turning left and going his way. "What to do now" As he had no idea about what to do, he his ears caught a conversation between two girls"I hear ministers from heaven are coming to recruit new awakened. I really wish I was an awakened" "I know right, but they get killed by feral beasts in battle while trying to protect us normal folks and I don't want to die a gruesome death so I think I'll stick to being a normal folk" "By the way, when are they going to arrive" "In the desert by twelve midnight" And that was all utsuro heard as the rest of the conversation faded into whispers
"Outside the city at midnight? But feral beasts will be out to hunt by that time" Utsuro wondered "well.... I guess fighting through the feral beasts is some kind of observation test to make sure one is an awakened. I guess haven is my next stop" Utsuro said as a light grin appeared across his face. He went to the towering gates of the city and then sat by them waiting..... Waiting for night to come.
On his way to the city gates, utsuro had been thinking of how to use his new attribute afterall, he couldn't go outside again with abilities that could only activate when he was face to face with death, at least not again. Utsuro closed his eyes imagining an ocean raging on and on then he imagined himself in the middle of that ocean. He felt an earth shaking presence emanate from behind him causing him to turn only to see the gargantuan cross unmoving. The cross was deep-rooyes into the sea which looked and felt infinitely deep but despite that, the cross still towered over everything present. This scenario was scary and he immediately tried to exit this space but it seemed like the cross wouldn't allow as he couldn't open his eyes hence could not exit this dreadful space. As if all he was witnessing wasn't enough, bodies.... Corpses of both corpses and feral beasts began to float to the surface of the vast ocean as the previously bright sky quickly began to darken until it turned hollow. The sea also turned completely black and once again, our boys was in complete darkness. The cross howled loudly making the space around distort "why-ha-you-come here" It asked "How do I use shadow souls" For the first time utsuro spoke to the cross.
Just then, an black aura covered utsuro before forming into a ball of smoke. It was like a fire ball but black like smoke and it didn't burn. Then utsuro opened his eyes, he sprang up huffing, puffing and coughing as he couldn't breath. The sound of the closing gates made him snap to the realization that it was dark already so he ran towards the gates and squeezed through the narrow opening before the gates closed completely. In the close distance, utsuro found several figures standing, waiting for the ministers of heaven to come but it was still seven and they had to survive on their own till twelve. He didn't think they knew this when he saw the look of hope visible on their faces as he moved closer. After some time, he reached the other awakened and alas the moon began to merge. The bastards from the previous night had come to finish what they had started"how.... What's happening why aren't the ministers coming? " One of the thirty two individuals asked in fear"Relax it's just a test you should be able to handle it you are an awakened after all "well, last time he alone managed to survive to an extent without any attributes or traits except for the five minutes absolute defense boost he got from 'eye of the cross'. So thirty two awakened with functional traits and attributes should be able to survive no matter how inexperienced for at least five hours until the ministers would arrive.
The moon finally finished merging and the gorgons tore their way out of the desert sand again running towards the small group at insane speed. The others equipped their attributes and charged towards the gorgons while utsuro simply started running in the opposite direction as he said in a soft, calm tone"you're meant to survive not fight you fools"but none of them heard as they had already began to charge towards the gorgons. A gorgon was approaching utsuro from the distance. Utsuro stopped, closed his eyes and concentrated hard and a feint, dark, smoke like aura emanated from him. He imitated what he saw and felt the cross doing in their last encounter concentrating
harder making the dark, smoke like aura stronger.
Utsuro then formed the aura into a palm sized orb emanating dark aura.
The palm sized orb opened it's white circle eyes giving a slightly visible light purple glow and then gave a wide grin.
[The tormented souls obey thy command.They come forth from the dark in thy heart and form from the pain in thy eyes and now, they shall never go to rest.]
By this time, the nine foot creature was directly in front of utsuro and swung it's thin, elongated, slimy fingers towards utsuto.
Utsuro leaned back as far as he could manage barely avoiding certain death. He lost his balance and fell to the ground as he felt a sharp pain all over his body"Ahhh"he shouted loudly. Gorgon then raised it's hand up preparing to strike but failed to bring it swinging down as the soul shadow transformed into a dark blade and cut it away before soaring high in the sky and crashed down on gorgon's faceless head killing it immediately. Utsuro got up and felt something wet on his chest somehow like warm water spilled on it. He looked down to realize that his right upper chest wound had reopened and was not bleeding profusely. The soul shadow looked at utsuro with evident disbelief how could it's master be this weak.
So weak he showed this much pain because of a common chest wound utsuro heard these thoughts of the soul shadow since they were connected more than just physically "Well forgive me if I don't match up to your standards" Utsuro said moving forward while tightly clutching his chest
[Would you like to name your companion? ]
[Yes] [No] [later]
The runes appeared urging utsuro to name soul shadow.
"I'll do it later" Utsuro hurriedly said, there was no time for something like that, at least not now. Soul shadow shapeshifted into a pitch black blade emitting a dark, smokey aura and attached itself to utsuro's hand
"Umm. Not bad, not bad at all" Utsuro was impressed. It seemed like this devilish, little guy could transform into anything as long as it's scale wasn't too big. He had to get to high ground as fast as possible right now there were only a few hundred gorgons but very soon, they would multiply and increase twenty fold attacking in millions.
Utsuro started running up a giant heap of sand deflecting gorgon attacks and rolling to avoid attacks when suddenly, The enormous worm from before burst out from beneath utsuro, catching him in it's rounded, mouth full of teeth of different sizes and proportions some were even bigger than utsuru himself but he kept the work from swallowing him whole
The giant worm then crashed back into the desert sand with utsuro still in it's mouth digging Barrows through the sand before bursting back out and throwing utsuro in the air. The worm turned and then attempted to swallow utsuro whole for the second time but utsuro held on tight to the worm's teeth, not letting go. The worm meant business as it took utsuro further up in the air expecting him to let go soon. Soul shadow rolled it's eyes and shapeshifted back to it's base form, a palm sized orb and then made a sound several times. The sound it made sounded like that of a rat, a baby rat
[Soul shadow says you are weak]
The runes appeared translateing what it said.
Soul shadow then dashed directly into the worms gigantic, circled mouth and fond it's way to it's stomach cutting, biting and munching on the worm's insides. The worm went on a frenzy trashing about here and there which was disadvantageous for utsuro who was hanging on by the bare skin of his teeth"stop, stop you're making it worse"
The worm crashed back into the ground grazing utsuro's body along hard rock. At this point, his clothes were already gracefully torn, his hair rough, old wounds had reopened and even new wounds could be seen all over his body"ugh, when will this pain end"utsuro thought. Soul shadow changed methods, it stopped slicing and munching but instead, it started moving in an orbit tearing everything in it's path before slowly expanding it's orbit.
On the outside, the worm's stomach was already swollen and bleeding and it's speed had significantly decreased. It flung utsuro away and started rolling around. This was the first time the gigantic worm showed the entire length of it's slimy body. The work turned over revealing it's massively swollen under belly as it was pulsing meanwhile in the worm's under belly, soul shadow was having a field trip putting the unlucky worm in pain. It increased it's rotation speed moving almost at the speed of sound as it expanded it's orbit until the worm's insides exploded causing blood to drip like rain
[You have killed a higher demon dalok].
Utsuro on the other hand was just getting up after the massive impact fortunately for him, desert sand is soft so he didn't die but he was still badly injured. Well on the bright side the worm was considerate enough to smash him on the very top of the heap of sand that he was running up to.
Shadow soul squeaked multiple times again which would have been funny is they weren't in their current predicament
[Shadow soul says you are useless]
Just then, an earthquake began and the ground began to split as millions of gorgons crawled out from beneath the sand.
"Damn, they're more that I expected"