“[Shadow Sewing]” the shadows around Cynriks body began to move as if alive, swirling around like a turbulent ocean.
Brance’s eyes flicked towards the large grey Fanged Rat, the target of Cynriks attack, and sucked in a sharp, cold breath. An inky black shadow churned slowly under its feet, making Brance doubt that it was even standing on solid ground. The unsuspecting Fanged Rat didn’t even understand what was about to happen, as five sharp tendrils erupted from its shadow and violently stabbed into its body, causing blood to spurt out from each new hole.
The rat’s eyes shot wide open in both fear and rage as it began screeching in pain, sending tremors through its entire body. But, as it soon found out, no matter how hard it screamed or struggled, its body wouldn’t obey the commands its brain was sending.
-You have inflicted the negative status: Bind on a Level 15 Tier-1 Grey Fanged Rat.-
A creepy smile spread across Cynrik’s face as he read the notification for his successful Bind. He couldn’t help but be amazed at how practical his new skill, which he obtained from his Evolution, was. As he admired his handy work, out the corner of his eye, he spotted Benny moving about, casting small one-meter tall waves of water around each of the confused rats.
Benny articulated his fingers like a pianist creating small pens of water confining each of the rats while he and Brance went about chipping down their HP so that Gabby would be able to deliver the decisive blow. Then, as the timer for Gabby’s [Confusion] was about to wear off, she fired a single arrow at the heads of all six rats, reaping them of their lives.
From start to finish, the poor Fanged Rats had no idea what even hit them, and they fell silently and humanely.
-Your Party has killed 6 Brown Fanged Rats.-
-All Party members have received 7900 XP-
-All Party members have received 3 AGI and 3 DEX-
-6 Affinitiless Tier-1 Codexes have been located-
-Due to the restrictions in place by the Alpha Egress Core, you will have to manually remove the Codexes.-
-Sliver of Skill (2) has been located.-
-Due to the restrictions in place by the Alpha Egress Core, you will have to manually remove the Slivers of Skill.-
[Cyn, do you need me to grab the Codexes and Slivers?] When the last rat fell, Brance looked over and noticed Cynrik hadn’t moved an inch from the position he stood when he had activated his [Shadow Sewing].
[Sigh, yeah. As it is, I cannot move when I use this damn skill. What a drag. -.-] Quoting a character from a popular anime that had a similar skill to what Cynrik currently had active, he informed Brance about the single flaw, which it seemed to also share with that character.
Unable to leave so long as his skill was active, Cynrik stood like the statue of an edgelord, with his right hand shaped in a claw and grasping the air just in front of his face.
Benny and Brance snickered at the older boys’ expense, leaving only Gabby, who raced over to Cynrik’s side and admired how cool he looked in her opinion.
The entire time this was going on, they were serenaded by the chorus of screams and growls coming from the shadow-bound grey Fanged Rat, but no one seemed to be bothered or even paying attention to its agony.
“Ok, this sucks. SCREW THIS MAN!”
[TOBS, HOW MANY FUCKING POINTS TO I GOTTA POUR INTO THIS THING TO BE ABLE TO MOVE!]
Fed up that he couldn’t show off or even swat the buzzing fly known as Gabby, Cynrik screamed into the mind link, drawing a loud chortle from Brance, who nearly fell over laughing.
-The Tier-1.5 Dark Affinity Skill: Shadow Sewing has three stages of Evolution. The first occurs at 25 points; in this stage, the Host will gain the ability to move your upper body while the skill is active; there will also be an increase in the durability of the tendrils to 3000 HP.-
-The second stage comes at 50 points; you will gain the use of five other tendrils, the cost for activation will be reduced to 20 per Shadow Tendril, and the cost of sustaining the skill will be reduced.
-The third and final stage of Evolution will allow the Host free range of their entire body while the skill is active, and the activation cost will be reduced to 15 MP per tendril. Also, the sustenance cost will be reduced to 2 MP per second.-
[FUCK IT, take the damn points away, Tobs.]
-You have spent 75 SP on the Tier-1.5 Dark Affinity Skill: Shadow Sewing.-
-Shadow Sewing has reached 75/75 Skill points and, as a result, has evolved to Special Grade. The skill will now present power beyond what was previously capable.-
-You cannot Evolve this skill further at this time due to your Affinity not having reached Tier-2.-
A wave of information flooded directly into Cynrik’s cerebral cortex, containing all of his newly upgraded skill data. But, of course, this was something he was prepared for. The commonly nicknamed “memory dump” was a staple for Systems on Vinestra, and since no one had explained it to the brothers, they had been caught with their pants down the first time it occurred.
When a being learned a new skill, the system would automatically download all of the data about everything from how it was used to even visuals related to how the skill would look in the form of memory fragments. The only downside to this was they were basically only given the cliff notes version of their abilities. It was up to the individual to figure out how they actually worked and how to utilize them effectively.
Cynrik referred to these memory fragments as the skill’s “training wheels,” in his opinion, they weren’t any better than the written descriptions. The only valuable part was the imagery you’d receive. Being someone who used to live for video games, manga, and anime, so long as Cynrik had some kind of picture of how the skill looked, he would be able to figure out the rest from there.
Brance had been listening in to the whole thing, and when he saw his brother’s body start twitching slightly, his eyes shot wide open, and he ran to grab Gabby. Seeing how Cynrik’s face changed after digesting the info for his new skill, he knew something was wrong.
Instantly appearing next to the little girl who was still teasing Cynrik, Brance scooped her up under his armpit and kicked the ground as hard as possible, throwing himself in Benny’s direction.
Brance’s timing was impeccable, as the second he was out of the way, the shadows under Cynrik’s feet exploded into five tendrils, ripping through the air and making a b-line for the grey rat. Less than a second later, all five sunk themselves into the open spots on its body, forcing the Fanged Rat to throw up a mouthful of blood.
Making a slicing motion at his own shadow, Cynrik severed the tendrils connected to himself and manipulated them to reconnect with the rat’s shadow, making it the point of origin for all ten.
With a twisted expression on his face, Cynrik articulated each of his fingers which controlled one tendril, and made a tearing motion with his arms, ripping the Fanged rat to shreds forming a mist of blood and gore silencing the rat of its agony.
Then with a flick of his wrist, the cloud of blood was set ablaze in [BlackFire], making it seem that the rat had never existed in the first place.
Standing in place and breathing raggedly, Cynrik looked at the members of his party, saw their expressions of horror, and shook his head sadly. This lapse of judgment was caused by the anger of being frozen in place; he had lost control of himself.
Brance had seen the signs of this and acted accordingly, pulling Gabby to a safe distance and placing himself in the potential path of destruction if he was forced to defend Gabby and Benny. However, even he was a little frightened by Cynrik’s sudden outburst.
[Calm them down, I…I need to go, don’t worry about me; when I clear my head, I’ll join back up with you all. I’m heading over to the Packhounds and completing my tasks alone. It’s better this way for now. I don’t want them to be scarred by what’s going on with me right now.]
Cynrik tossed a final sad look at Gabby, who was petrified by what she had just witnessed and activated another one of his new skills, [Shadow Leap].
-Tier-1.5 Dark Affinity Skill: Shadow Leap.-
-By coating yourself in pure Dark Mana, you can sink into your own shadow and flit from shadow to shadow unhindered by three-dimensional objects. While you’ll be unaffected by physical damage inside your own shadow, you can still be wounded by Elemental and Mental damage. If you suffer any damage while traveling in the shadows, you will forcefully be ejected and suffer a two-hour cooldown penalty. –
-Activation Cost: 300 MP.-
-Sustaining Cost: 10 MP per second.-
Like slipping into a pool of water, Cynrik dropped down into his own shadow and disappeared from sight, leaving Brance, Gabby, and Benny alone in the cavern.
The three sat in stunned silence for 15 minutes, with the only sound being the clattering of Gabbys teeth, as she gripped onto Brance, shivering and reliving the brutal scene she had witnessed.
In her mind, Cynrik was always standoffish and kind of distant, but she had never seen him be cruel. Those cruel eyes were even directed at her for a second, and as she relived the memory of him shredding the rat, she could feel tears welling up in her eyes.
At that moment, she didn’t see Cynrik as the older brother who always teased and made fun of her but still gave in to her selfish demands. Instead, she saw him as one of the villains in the stories her mom used to read her before bed.
Brance looked down at the little girl nestled into his chest and heaved a heavy sigh.
“Gabby, Benny, I need you both to listen to what I am about to say. What you saw earlier, that wasn’t the real Cynrik. Unfortunately, he is in a lot of pain and is sick right now. But, you know he loves you both like siblings and would never hurt either of you. That’s why he left. He doesn’t want you guys or me to see how bad he’s hurting. Cyn is confused and scared, and he doesn’t know how to handle his feelings. So please…don’t be scared of him. Right now, he needs us. He needs to know we still care about him. He needs to see that we don’t fear him.”