As far as we scholars understand, Spiritual Beasts weren’t originally part of Heaven and Earth but somehow got added at some point. Divination techniques trace their existence back to the primeval era, when the flames of mortal civilization had only just started burning. Still, recent discoveries and breakthroughs push their presence even further than that, into the age of Immortals and Gods.
–Excerpt from ‘Creatures of The World’, by Lee Gawk.
Harry gashed his teeth in frustration as he dove after the weak and seemingly malnourished rat repeatedly, only for him to dodge in the nick of time.
It was ridiculous; he didn’t have anything superior physically to Harry, yet somehow managed to make him embarrass himself multiple times, effortlessly.
When he couldn’t handle it anymore, the rat snapped and fully activated [Adrenal Burst], eyes flashing with murderous intent as he swooped in for a fatal blow. The world slowed, and Harry’s eyes became beads of flowing darkness tinged with a misty crimson hue that seemed to flow alongside him and out of his eyes as he moved.
Harry saw the rat shift as soon as he moved, but it was of no use; he knew that the rat somehow knew where he’d go or try to do, but now Harry had nullified that advantage with sheer speed.
He was upon the rat in a split second, claws flashing as they moved in for a final strike, but then something unexpected occurred.
“Wait!” Squeaked the terrified rat, halting Harry’s attack instantly as his mind reeled in shock and confusion.
“You have wisdom?” He asked, unable to understand how such a thing was even possible. The only other rat he met with enough wisdom and intelligence to converse with was Ballcrusher, and he had a very powerful bloodline, so that was a given.
“Yes, great one, please, spare my life!”
Harry’s gaze locked onto the rat and began scrutinizing it, particularly its eyes. Other than its submissive position and malnourished body, there was nothing else worthy of note, that was, until Harry looked into its eyes.
They were a deep, unsettling blue with crescent purple rings that interlocked to form a fiendishly complex geometrical iris littered with shifting symbols and moving letters. Harry felt a strange power oozing out from them that reminded him of a sundial, for some odd reason.
Harry’s mind was instantly filled with greed, the longer he gazed at those beautiful, otherworldly eyes. He wanted them, and he knew that he had a chance of acquiring them if he managed to eat the rat before him.
He held off, though; something wasn’t quite right with this rat, his intuition kept tell him that danger existed within him and would burst forth the moment he tried to truly end the rat’s life.
This made sense; this rat couldn’t be ordinary to survive with such a weak-looking build and nice eyes within the Bloodcrusher Gang. Either he had a way to hide them and appear normal, or he had enough strength to keep covetous gazes away, perhaps even both.
Harry had to account for both, which forced him to raise the rat’s danger level mentally. He also had to consider the fact that he hadn’t been able to notice anything abnormal about these eyes until now, which was something to consider.
The rat had obviously calculated this perfectly and was now showing some of its uniqueness to Harry in the hopes of appearing useful. That was the worst thing it could’ve done, though; Harry was inherently cynical of anything flashy, unique, or cunning.
The rat before him reeked of cunning; there was something else at play here, something Harry couldn’t quite grasp or understand fully, so he decided to do away with the rat.
His eyes flashed with murderous intent, and the rat instantly kicked back and flew into the air, landing a few meters away from him.
“A shame,” He said, sighing sadly. “ I had hoped we could work together and end that bastard’s rule once and for all, but it seems it wasn’t meant to be, sad.” Harry attempted to move, but the rat’s eyes flashed with a strange blue radiance that locked him into place.
He suddenly felt as if a mountain had been dropped atop his head, a massive metaphysical one that made even thinking hard. It didn’t last long, though; Harry’s power rose to meet it in full force, salivating as it began to rapidly devour whatever strange power that held him in place.
The rat’s eyes flashed with dread, but Harry was already upon him as soon as he managed to break free. A single leap took him off the ground and into the air, shooting towards the frozen rat like a bullet fired from a gun.
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Harry’s teeth clamped down on something, but it wasn’t the head of the rat; a shimmering bubble of blue geometric power had manifested around him, blocking the attack before shifting into an ethereal spear that slammed into Harry’s chest, pinning him to the ground.
Harry felt a bit rattled internally, but he hadn’t sustained any damage; the only issue he now faced was the spear that refused to move. The rat called upon his authority of predation once more and sent it flying towards the spear as a mass of ugly, slobbering mouths.
He was free in moments, but the rat had already begun fleeing, and Harry shifted into pursuit. The chase didn’t last long, though; what he thought was a fleeing rat was nothing more than an illusion manifested by his opentent.
When Harry realized this, however, it was already too late.
The ‘rat’ ahead of him broke apart into blue light, and a shimmering deep-blue ethereal spear covered in shifting text slammed into his head, exploding it at once.
The ‘grass’ behind him rippled and dissolved less than a second later, and a malnourished rat with bloodshot blue fractal-like eyes walked out of the distorted grass, looking at Harry’s corpse with disdain and arrogance.
“Try to kill me?” He asked, the contempt in his eyes growing even more intense the longer his gaze lingered, “ A scion of the Muridae bloodline? How laughable! If my Nine divinations Eyes hadn’t led me here, that bastard Ballcrusher would’ve died a long time ago!”
“Oh-” The rat suddenly paused as Harry’s ‘corpse’ burst into bits of vibrant green light that seemed to embody the concept of life itself. It lasted for less than a second, but when it vanished, he was face to face with Harry’s mouth that was already closing over his head.
The next second, it snapped shut with a powerful and wet crunch, ending the rat’s life.
Harry’s authority flared up a second later and devoured what remained, ensuring that he was truly dead.
-Predation was partially successful-
-Trait acquired: Enhanced Eyes (0)
-Trait acquired: Sixth sense (0)
-Stat unlocked: PER
+200 Biomass
+1 soul
Harry gazed at the combined notification, not quite sure what to make of it. It was quite lackluster and not at all what he had expected; he expected at least one trait from the stout rat, but ended up with zero. Did that mean it didn’t have anything redeemable about it, or had his authority just failed to extract it?
Until now, his power has always managed to extract something, even if it was useless. Where had the biomass from that fight gone, too? Was it trying to tell him that the 200 units of biomass he saw before him were everything it managed to extract from both?
Harry found that stupid; there was just no way such a well-built and strong rat had so little biomass, it didn’t make any sense. Harry had a rough understanding of what biomass was; it was a type of energy stored in all living things, derived from food and the world around them.
The more a creature had, the stronger and more built it appeared. That was the way of things, unless you were a special existence capable of ignoring this rule like Harry. The rat knew something was off, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what, or why, and even if he could, Harry doubted he’d be able to do something about it.
Still, it was disappointing; the only real gain was the [PER] stat, everything else seemed a bit… lackluster. At least for now, Harry knew that all he needed to do was continuously upgrade these traits, and they might turn out well; there was even a chance of them becoming something truly powerful like his [Iron Exoskeleton].
The rat sighed and looked around; the world seemed a bit different than before. It was a slight change, but Harry noticed it. Everything seemed a bit sharper, more defined, and less muted. It was as if a thin film had been lifted off his eyes, allowing Harry to view the world with a bit more detail.
That wasn’t the only change, though; his thoughts felt a tad faster and more defined than usual, even his [Wall] trait seemed a bit more resilient.
Harry didn’t know why, but he suspected that the subtle new changes had something to do with the soul in his possession.
Harry made his way to the edge of the grassfield, just shy of the road that led inward to Lu Town, and began contemplating as he watched people and carriages shuffle back and forth. He’d killed one of Ballcrsuher’s wives and two of her special bodyguards; he knew such a thing was impossible to hide, and more rats would be coming soon to find out what was taking so long.
It wouldn’t be that big of a commotion, at least not initially; Harry knew for a fact that Ballcrsuher didn’t know about Ballusha’s affair with Pink Lump. Ballcrsuher was a jealous and greedy rat that would stop at nothing to protect what he viewed as his belongings, which included the female rats in his vast and twisted harem.
If he knew, Pink Lump wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale; the entire ballcrusher gang would’ve mobilized to torture and slaughter him for weeks.
Some rats were aware, though; her bodyguards had come to look for her in the morning, meaning this wasn’t the first time she’d done such a thing.
Harry had a feeling that some of the other wives knew, too, but they were just keeping silent. Likely because Ballusha had some great secret for them, too.
Harry planned to use this to his advantage; use the time gained to spend all his accumulated biomass to become as strong as possible in the meantime, while picking off whoever came to suss out what was up until the entire matter escalated.
The rat was confident he’d be able to handle Ballcrsuher fully by then, if not, he could always run away and try another time.
This was a dangerous bet, but Harry felt like it was fine; he knew the ins and outs of the gang well enough to know that his plan had a 60% chance of succeeding, which was good enough for Harry.
With a fully formed plan, Harry summoned his status sheet and began thinking. He still had a lot of biomass to spend, and while he liked the idea of holding some for emergencies, now was not the time to be frugal; if he died because he was cheap, Harry didn’t know if he’d forgive himself in the next life.
Name: Harry [####]
Species: Common Rat
Authority: Predation
Facets:
HP: 2/2 (1HP/D)
STAM: 400/400
VENOM: 100%
AGI: 20
STR: 30
INT: 10
WIS: 21
DEF: 50
PER: 15
Biomass: 4000
Souls: 1
Traits:
Iron Stomach (1) (100)
Iron teeth (1) (100)
Adrenal Burst (3) (600)
Wall (1) (2000)
Iron Exoskeleton (5) (3000)
Spiritual sense (0)(1000)
Photosynthesis (1)(100)
Fat storage (1) (100)
Kin link (-)
Fast clotting (1) (100)
Sharp claws (1) (100)
Thermal vision (1)(100)
Venom Glands (1) (100)
Forced Hibernation (1) (100)
Iron skeleton (1) (100)
Dual Heart (1) (100)
Super strength (1) (100)
Regeneration (1) (300)
Sixth sense (0) (50)
Enhanced Eyes (0) (50)
In post-apocalyptic New York, a young man accepts the challenge of a lifetime, joining an elite team to fight the monsters threatening humanity’s future.
Eleven years after the Mana Apocalypse, nineteen-year-old James Summers has more on his mind than just the flailing economy and a country full of monsters. Orphaned and living with his grandparents, he’s given up on college in favor of working at the Coney Island Home Depot while pining for Sally, his cool, beautiful colleague.
But it’s hard to ignore the news of dungeons opening up all over the country, both in cities and across lonely stretches of rural land. Mutated rats, crocodiles, and spiders pour out of them to face off against mankind, and all that stands in their way is the Awakeners, people who, in moments of great stress, are able to tap into the mana that now pulsates throughout the world.
When James receives the System message that he’ll join their ranks, naturally he’s thrilled. The Awakeners live like kings in powerful guilds and are solely responsible for humanity’s survival. Ever since his father—who worked for a mysterious agency—passed away, he’s wanted to follow in his footsteps to improve society. This is his chance to make that dream come true.
But when James joins the Awakeners Association, it quickly becomes apparent that not all is as it seems. The bureaucratic institution is weakening, and fraud and corruption are rife, while a conspiracy sprawls through the most powerful guilds. Meanwhile, Sally’s ex, Callum, is hot on his tail. Oh, and a dungeon is opening under Manhattan. As James develops his skills, he’ll have to be quick—and smart—to stay alive.
