Today, Abaddon was rather excited.
For the first time ever, he had ventured out into the forest to train with his most dangerous and lethal elements.
While he wasn’t particularly excited about the training per say, he was excited about the new method he’d thought of to complete it.
By splitting his body and making use of his thought acceleration, he was capable of studying multiple fields at once and thus, drastically reducing the time required to master an element.
Suddenly he had cut down his expected learning time from two months to 5-6 days.
Today, he was going to try to use his death and spatial elements.
Abaddon decided to start with the power of death first since it was the one he was most unfamiliar with and would need to spend the most time on.
He already had a small bit of experience in using spatial magic so he figured that one would be significantly less difficult.
Because he knew so little about the death element, he had decided to take as many precautions as possible.
As such, he was currently looking for a space far away from the castle to reduce the chances of hurting someone on accident.
Along the way, he thought about the most recent conversation he’d had with his parents.
After he’d put the kids to sleep during their spar, they’d told him about their wedding plans and of course invited his entire family.
But since the wedding was to be held in Antares, that meant that Abaddon would have to wait to receive an official invitation.
He felt rather strange about witnessing his parents get married but at the end of the day, he was rather happy for them and hoped that they could live their new lives free of separation from each other.
Now that he had loved ones of his own, he could not imagine how he would feel if he had to be separated from them for years like his father was.
Luckily, it seemed like the two were taking every opportunity to make up for those eighteen years apart and their love could not have been stronger.
‘Should I expect a sibling or two in the future?’ He wondered. ‘…I think I quite like being an only child though.’
The dragon soon decided to free himself of useless thoughts for the time being and focused on his current task.
He had finally found living creatures to test his powers on and it was time to focus.
In front of him was a group of massive bears with blood red fur and dark curved horns.
Unsurprisingly, these bears were not displaying their usual ferocious behavior and instead were trembling with fear.
Within these forests they were most likely the dominant predator, so they were unsure of how to react to the sudden appearance of a monster that was above their comprehension.
“If you look at me like that you’re going to make me feel bad.” Abaddon said flatly. “This is not personal.”
The dragon held out his hands and they began to swirl with a deathly black mist.
He had never received any skills when he gained the death affinity so he was relatively unsure of how to use it.
But if he’d learned anything from all of his training over the past few weeks, it was that all of his affinities could open up a pathway to skills, he just had to be creative.
As long as his will was strong enough and he had a firm idea of what he wanted to do, he had virtually no limits.
This realization also brought about the theory that the system may have been limiting his growth. 𝚘𝐯𝑳xt.𝗰𝒪𝓜
Even though he certainly felt the loss of the shop and the ability to see evolution conditions, he felt like such a thing was a small price to pay for this feeling of being unrestrained.
Holding up his hand, he tried to fire a projectile of some sort, and was taken aback when his entire body released a pulse of deathly mist instead.
“Huh?”
“Groh?”
Both himself and the herd of bears let out noises of surprise as the swirling black mist killed everything it came into contact with.
The patches of grass underneath Abaddon’s feet were the only area within 60 yards to remain unaffected.
The luscious dark green forest surrounding him had suddenly turned into a bleak and barren nightmare as the grass, trees, and small animals all turned black and died.
But the bears suffered the most unsightly death by far.
Dark blood spurted from their ears, nostrils, mouths and any other orifice available.
The poor beasts did not even make a single sound as they fell over dead, leaving only a slightly disturbed Abaddon behind.
He said a silent apology to the furry mammals before looking at the patch of dead forest surrounding him.
‘This is only a third of it’s power…?’
Back at the castle, his other two heads were practicing magic with Lisa and sparring with Absalom and Zheng.
Since his body was divided, all of his abilities had taken a substantial cut.
But even with only a third of his power, he had been able to cause this much damage without even meaning to.
“It’s a good thing I came out here, this power is definitely too dangerous to be used casually inside the castle.”
He wasn’t exactly sure what this power would do to a vampire, but it wasn’t something that he currently wanted to learn either.
‘But still, I should find a way to focus this power so that I don’t end up harming my allies when I use it.’
As Abaddon left the area to search for an undestroyed patch of land, he missed the moment where a swarm of flies suddenly landed on the deceased bear corpses and began eating them.
Long after he had left, the insects began to glow with an intense black light as they underwent a staggering metamorphosis.
– 2 hours later.
In another clearing, Abaddon was trying to come up with another way to properly utilize his death affinity.
He’d learned that while he couldn’t launch projectiles, he was more than capable of manipulating that swirling dark mist like it was an extension of himself.
It had taken a fair amount of practice, but now he was being encircled by a deadly black smoke whilst surrounded by more dead forest.
“I wonder if Eris can fix this…” he had begun to feel a built guilty for his decimation of the local wildlife.
He knew his elven wife possessed a nature affinity, so he thought he might bring her out here for an impromptu date after she helped him.
He figured it would be a nice way to say thank you.
“Hm?”
Abaddon suddenly turned around when he heard the sound of wings beating and felt several approaching presences.
Whatever was approaching felt eerily familiar, so he almost dropped his guard, but when he realized that the numbers were well within the hundreds, he perished the thought.
Taking out his spear and sword, he sprouted his huge black wings and flew up into the sky.
Finally, he was able to get a good look at the incoming beasts and he briefly wondered if he was still sane.
They were… nightmarish aberrations of nature.
Strange horselike creatures with locust-like grey bodies and wings that were almost metallic.
Possessing the pincers and stingers of scorpions and a face that contained no features other than a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, the mere sight of these beasts would be enough to terrify even the cruelest of sinners.
“By the gods… What the hell are these things…?”
When Abaddon took to the sky, the beasts of nightmare wasted no time in following behind him and they flew up as well.
Currently, Abaddon was surrounded by hundreds of these unholy monsters and he had nowhere to run.
Just as he prepared to start cutting down the beasts himself, he was surprised when they started making strange noises that sounded… happy?
“Skree!”
“Skree!”
“Skree!”
Soon the air filled with the happy cries of these horrifying monsters and Abaddon felt himself becoming more and more confused by the minute.
Despite their ferocious appearance, these things were actually surprisingly docile.
And upon closer inspection, Abaddon realized why these beasts felt so familiar.
They were emanating almost the same type of aura as someone who had consumed his blood.
While he didn’t feel the same type of connection that he did with people, he was atleast conscious of the fact that they would not hurt him.
Putting away his weapons, he flew towards the beast that was the closest to him and held out his hand.
Unsurprisingly, the beast gave him a loving lick with a dark black tongue and made more happy noises.
“You’re surprisingly cute for such an ugly little thing.” Abaddon said with a chuckle.
Evidently, the beast did not like that and it droped it’s head in disappointment.
“Ah…Sorry, that was really quite rude of me.” He had no idea that these things were smart enough to understand him but that appeared to have been the case.
They also seemed to be terribly sensitive as well.
Abaddon brought his hand to the head of the beast and gave it a few apologetic pats.
But I’m doing so, he accidentally delved into the beast’s mind and witnessed the circumstances behind its creation.
Abaddon had gotten pretty used to most of the absurd things that he was capable of doing but for the first time in a long time, his mouth fell open in shock.
He did not realize that the entire time he was using his death magic, he was leaving behind an imperceptible magical residue within the things he killed.
To ensure that nothing touched by his magic could be resurrected, faint traces of his magic would linger within it’s cells and prevent any attempts at healing.
But that’s not where the problems came from.
When flies came to feed on the corpses of the deceased animals, they consumed that same magical residue.
While that should have killed them, insects are notorious for their resilience and ability to survive catastrophe.
But to continue to live on, they couldn’t just survive.
They had to evolve.
By absorbing Abaddon’s deathly mana and letting it recreate and reshape them, they were able to gain new lives and more power than they could have ever dreamed of.
Upon completing their transformation, they all felt a single minded desire to seek out their master and the one who had saved them from their meager lives as insects.
The red king removed his hand from the head of the nightmarish and happy beast.
The realization of what he had done hit him like a ton of bricks.
Abaddon had created an entirely new member of the animal kingdom while simply trying to practice with his powers over death.