Finished with his strategy briefing, Cynrik turned and faced the residential area half a kilometer away. Unfortunately, he had failed to tell Brance his reasoning behind allowing Montu’s transformation to complete itself. While it may seem like a good idea to rush in and kick the lizard while it was down, Cynrik was absolutely against this idea.
What Brance saw as a simple hazy mirage, Cynrik knew the truth behind its real meaning. The effect wasn’t given off by heat but instead by a combination of Divinity and Gravitational pressure. Although he wasn’t physically close enough to experience this force, based on his observations with [Mana Sight] and his previous experience in fighting Ragnar, Cynrik estimated that the Gravitational force being exerted on the residential area was no less than 10g. Enough to splatter the Sanford siblings into a paste and cause muscle and bone damage to Cynrik and Brance.
This meant that he had no other choice but to allow Montu’s corruption and subsequent transformation to continue unhindered. Feeling uneasy, Cynrik directed the others to group up alongside him, and the party started off in the direction of the huts.
In the residential area, Montu was no longer rolling around on the ground; at some point, he had ceased his cries to his goddess and sat in the lotus position with his eyes closed. Not long after MyrkLys had left the area to power level, Montu had heard a voice in his mind. The silky-smooth and attractive voice of his Goddess, Wadjet.
She lovingly told him that she had heard his prayers and was going to give him a challenge; if he completed it to perfection, she would bestow great power upon her loyal subject. Unfortunately, blinded by ignorance and his love for Wadjet, Montu carelessly accepted this quest and was forced into a battle of epic proportions within his SOC. In the end, the Spirit came out victorious and caved in his skull with the very bone staff Montu had created.
Winning the battle was only the beginning for this Spirit, as the process of taking over Montu’s body was a lengthy one. When it opened its new eyes and saw the body it had inhabited, the being scoffed loudly. As someone who had not only fought in the last Legacy Strife, this being had previously reached the 5th Tier; now, however, it found itself trapped in a reptilian body and regressed to the precipice of Tier-2.
It only took a moment to get its bearings and pull up its newly acquired System panel. The first thing it noticed was a small box floating in front of his Status.
-Would you like to Respec your Stats? Y/N.-
Since this wasn’t his first time interacting with a Legacy Strife System, he broke out into a toothy grin, clicked yes, and began allocating all of his points per his original format from thousands of years ago.
-You have chosen to Respec, your Stat Distribution will be adjusted to the same as you had with your previous System.-
: Status :
: Osarseph (Montu) :
: Title – System Host, Former High Shaman Priest, Deity Blessed, Ruthless Sacrificer :
: Chlamydraco-Kobold Male :
: Age-? :
: Tier-2 :
: Primary Class – Shaman : (+2 DEX, +2 INT, +1 VIT)
: Sub Class – Apprentice Alchemist (+2 INT)
It took some time for Osarseph to work his way through setting up his new Status. The Respec had not only rerolled all of his stats to their base, but it had also given him back every ounce of XP Montu had earned over 20 years.
By the time he completed this, MyrkLys had already begun their fight against the Kobold Soldiers. However, none of this mattered to Osarseph. He couldn’t be bothered to worry about the ants, who he believed to be beneath him. So even when the melodious voice of the Cobra Goddess rang out in his mind, he was undeterred. Inhaling deeply and feeling the 10g of pressure caused by his ascension, Osarseph calmly felt out his new body and thought back to his final moments of life during the previous LS.
All he could remember was facing a being wielding a massive two-handed greatsword and wearing leather armor. A glint of fury flashed through Osarseph’s eyes before he closed them again. He could still vividly remember those bright purple markings on this man’s skin. Then, unconsciously, he reached up and touched his right shoulder and felt a phantom pain leftover from when that man hacked his body in two, from right shoulder to left hip.
The last thing he remembered was the chaotic sneer on that man’s bearded face, as he spoke in a language he could not understand, then…fire…blue flames followed by endless darkness.
-Osarseph, it is nearly time; two Charges are heading your direction, prepare for battle. Oh, teehee, one last thing, my beloved Charge, the being dressed in black is the Charge under the Raven God, the Deity whose Charge slew you in the previous Strife.-
Wadjet’s words caused Osarseph’s eyes to snap open and fill with pure unadulterated rage.
“Good, I shall reap this Charge of his life and deal the pain I felt that day unto them tenfold.” In Ancient Egyptian, Osarseph’s voice rang out through the quiet residential area. His voice was raspy and two octaves deeper than Montu’s, but the hisses created by his racial features were still prevalent.
“It is a pity, though, that I have regressed so far back. Still, I should be able to deal with a couple of bugs without problems.” Osarseph snorted and spat on the ground beside his body.
“The merger process is nearing the last stages; it won’t be long now.” Initially, he hadn’t been too keen on jumping straight into combat after taking over his new body. But now, with the information leaked by Wadjet, Osarseph was overcome by excitement and thoughts of revenge.
Closing his eyes and grinning widely, stretching the skin on his snout and showing his teeth, Osarseph patiently awaited the moment when the Divine pressure dispersed, allowing him to attack.
Feeling uneasy, Cynrik halted the party’s advance by holding up his right hand with a closed fist and activating [Mana Sight] and [Inspect]. His target was the humanoid lizard sitting a quarter of a kilometer away.
‘Shit, I was right. Montu’s info has been updated…he lost, and the Spirit Being has taken over his body.’ Gritting his teeth and shooting a glance at Brance, who too had activated his ocular skills, Cynrik couldn’t help but feel this battle may be more challenging than expected.
[I was right.] Was all Cynrik said in the mind link, which was plenty for Brance to understand just how fucked they were.
“Benny, Gabby, listen to me carefully. The closer we get to the residential area, the more the gravitational force will increase. Brance and I have trained you by using our Killing Intent, but that only gave you a resistance of 2g. The central point of this wave of gravity has an astronomical force of 10g’s. So we will slowly advance until we reach the 3g mark. I don’t know how long it will take for the gravity to calm down and go back to normal, but we might as well use the time we have to train up your resistance. In the meantime, if you feel any real pain, immediately tell Brance so that he can heal you up. I want you both at your peak for the battle.”
Cynrik’s words stunned the Sanford siblings, causing them both to shiver in fright. They both vividly remembered those “training” sessions, where Brance and Cynrik took turns scaring the hell out of them with the mysterious Killing Intent.
Brance noticed their reactions to his brother, and he weakly smiled.
“You two haven’t noticed yet, have you? Thanks to our battles, you both have unlocked the hidden Stat Killing Intent, just like Big Brother and me. Even more impressive is that you both are at 3.75 G, so you can actually exert more pressure than either of us could during those days when we did gravity training with you.”
Contrary to what Brance was saying, Gabby and Benny had, in fact, already noticed they gained Killing Intent and had even gone over the information given by their Systems. However, they hadn’t had a chance actually to use it yet.
“If you two sync up and unleash your Killing Intents together, you should be able to exert a force of 7.5g on a singular target. But that’s easier said than done, it took a bit of time before Brance, and I could pull it off without failing.” Adding to what Brance said, Cynrik chimed in while motioning for everyone to continue walking into the Divine Gravity field.
“It’s really not that big of a deal, Killing Intent, that is. The big thing is knowing when to use it effectively in a fight. You just have to remember that the higher the pressure you exert, the less time it lasts. So, for example, if you went full throttle and dumped your entire 3.75g on someone, you can probably only keep it going for at best 10 seconds before it will go on cooldown.” Cynrik tucked his hands into his pockets and continued walking; he could feel the gravity increase from its basic 1g to 1.25, then 1.50.
Having spent so much time in the HBTC, Cynrik and Brance were very keen on any minute changes that occurred regarding gravity. That was how they could increase their resistance to 5g so quickly; it just took a little bit of time and getting used to it.
Behind him, he could sense Gabby and Benny stiffen up several times each time the gravity increased by 0.25g, but they were able to adjust to the pressure quickly.
“Killing Intent is pretty useful, to be honest. It can earn you a couple of seconds by stalling out your opponent. The shock factor of being a kid and having such a high stat will more often than not freak out the person you’re using it on, allowing you the opportunity to land a fatal strike on them before they can react.”
Brance stifled a laugh, as he still wasn’t used to Cynrik’s teacher mode. However, since he won his internal battle against Ragnar, Brance could see the drastic change occurring with Cynrik’s personality. If it were in the past, he would get frustrated when they didn’t understand after giving partial information to Gabby and Benny. Cynrik gave thorough and in-depth info to the Sanfords, ensuring they completely understood the topic.
Brance couldn’t help but think it was a nice change of pace and was happy to have his old brother back. The way Cynrik acted now was what he used to be like on Earth, especially when he would teach him things when they were kids.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong Fam. PS Check out the Discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg