Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Skullius devoured the soul.

The sensation was different from when he devoured Sila's soul. There was a major difference.

While there was still no taste, an electric feeling smothered his entire being, coursing through his soul and inducing a rather exciting sensation!

Once more, the soul broke down in Skullius' body, going on to fuel it with only a smidgen of the power that belonged to Dezrael.

Soon, notifications streamed into his sight, bearing the results of what this soul had given him.

[You have devoured the soul of a Higher level existence]

[A piece of Arch-Luminant Dezrael's soul is permanently engraved in you]

[You have gained Luminant Seed]

[The strength residing in this soul is too much for you. 95% has been wasted and the rest has been salvaged]

[+150 Mana]

[+75 Health]

[+50 Strength]

[+20 Endurance]

"Hoo..." Skullius breathed out.

It pained him every time he heard that there was wastage. This time ,however, the guidance field had said that there was only 95% wastage which was a positive... right?

As he paid more attention, Skullius realised that it was probably because he had gained something else from Dezrael's soul.

~~~

[Luminant Seed]

The soul of Dezrael has condensed the essence of his race and it has been passed to you. As a higher ranked existence, Dezrael's peak strength in relation to his racial abilities has found its way to you in the form of a seed from which you can extract the benefits of being a Luminant to a very limited degree.

~~~

"I don't get it," Skullius said after rereading it.

He requested to see this seed and the guidance field spat out a spherical object the size of a fist. It had a dull golden hue that made it look ethereal. It did indeed look like a seed.

"Do I eat it too?"

Sensing his desire to use the seed, the guidance field brought the seed to Skullius' chest, and the round object sank into him seamlessly!

Skullius watched this process with curious eyes before noticing that a soft tingle ran through his body.

[You have used 'Luminant Seed']

[Racial alteration attempt in progress...]

[Processing...]

[Racial alteration failed. You cannot bring out the latent potential within the 'Luminant Seed'. The seed will remain dormant until host has reached the Advancement Stage]

'Sighhh.... At the end of the day, I'm still so weak. I can't even level up, which is tragic. I wonder if there are many as strong as Fulgardt or Dezrael though.'

Skullius put the issue of the seed to the back of his head.

What could he do? He didn't really understand what this Advancement Stage even was, but he could guess that to reach it, he needed to level up, which, for the moment, was impossible.

He looked at his messed up body.

He now had a mana capacity of 255 Mana Points which rivalled his Boneman form's Mana Points.

Unlike before when he would have to wait or resort to using [Basic Mana Manipulation] to draw in and wait for hours until it filled up, Skullius found his core filled with mana in less than a minute.

"This is extremely convenient!" Skullius exclaimed happily.

He didn't waste time and activated [Luminous Healing].

A stream of relaxing energy burst into his body with such an invigorating sensation that Skullius emitted a moan of pleasure!

The soothing energy washed away the crispy, black skin on his arms and face. Skullius saw the rapid regrowth of his cosmetic flesh and he grinned.

Soon, he was as good as new, with a clean generic face that screamed of optimism.

Once again, mana streamed into his core to fill it up.

The effect of Dezrael's armour was too good!

The Discount Human would have been extremely satisfied with the armour if it didn't look like it was on its last legs.

Well, apparently it was on its last legs!

~~~

[ArchLight Generation Keeper]

An armour forged by ten of the royal blacksmiths of E'kald. It is made with extremely rare materials and carved with countless runes and mythic circles that enable it to hold the power of at least a 100 Incandescent Stage experts. It can store mana through a pocket core built into it, and can also store items within the subspace it was forged with.

-Defense-

2400

-Durability-

15/3500

-Special Effects-

• Can store pieces of the armour set

Currently stored – (Helmet)

• Can store mana from willing participants

Current mana limit – (34,562/21,000,000)

• Can reflect 50% elemental and physical damage

• +25% Agility

• +40% Strength

~~~

Skullius wore a grimace.

The armour had a capacity of 21 million units of mana?!

Even though only a fraction of that was available to Skullius right now, he was still bewildered.

This was unbelievable. It was a miracle that he had survived his encounter with Dezrael. If not for [Pseudo Evil Veneration], he wouldn't have survived.

Speaking of that monstrous ability, Skullius decided that he wouldn't use it for now.

Even though he had been lost in the ecstacy of watching that sockethole, Dezrael explode, the side effects he had faced had made him wonder what would have happened if [Pseudo Evil Veneration] hadn't latched onto the Dezrael's mana!

What if there had not been any nearby mana around?

It really seemed like he would have been devoured by that darkness too.

Was [Pseudo Evil Veneration] unstable? Was this detrimental feature because it wasn't in its true, completed form?

It seemed like a greedy force that required tonnes of mana.

The conditions to successfully using the art were still vague. To truly wish evil upon someone was a hard concept for Skullius. He only had such a thing for Somanda but no one else until now.

'Oh well. Now for the moment of truth...' The Discount Human thought.

With his healing done, he went on to pump some experience into his Boneman form to which he received the notification that it had finally reached LV10!

Oh yes!

This was good!

...But nothing else happened.

"I really have to wait for the countdown to end?! Gah!" Skullius grunted in disappointed.

Well, perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised.

Accepting his fate, Skullius looked around and noticed the broken yoke on the ground. Glints of golden white sparked frequently with an extremely dim light.

He approached and touched the yoke. Surprisingly, with a bit more focus, Skullius found that there were a myriad scribbles on the yoke in golden white.

They looked a bit like what was written on the wall, yet more intricate.

As he felt over them, the darkness and light on the yoke resonated with his affinities!

Once more, Skullius found himself gaining a bit more of an understanding about what was written as he ran his fingers over the writing that was engraved with the dancing elements.

It was much clearer now.

"Only a wielder of my two masterpieces in.... can .... this yoke... A choice is rendered where the flick of a finger from even the weakest carrier can... remove... bind..."

Skullius read on, his face scrunching up. He turned to the chunks of Dezrael and gnashed his teeth.

"I didn't have to spend all those hours slashing this thing?! I could have just easily commanded it to be broken?! Are you serious?!" Skullius barked.

Indeed.

From the beginning, everyone who managed to acquire [Just Light] or [Evil Darkness] or both had the option to release the opponent they found.

It wouldn't be much of a fair choice if it was hard to remove the yoke in the first place. The first option to show your opponent honour would be void if that was the case.

Dezrael did not know this for obvious reasons, which is why he immediately resorted to using Skullius to cleave the yoke off.

All those hours had gone to waste for absolutely no reason.

The Discount Human tried to decipher all the wording on the yoke but he still found it to be inadequate as he couldn't understand all the words.

After a few minutes of venting his frustration, Skullius decided to move forward. He had reaped some gains, but he barely felt secure.

His armour, while powerful, was still losing its durability; it was close to shattering. When that happened, Skullius didn't know what would happen to all the power that was loaded within it. Well, he would lose it, for sure at least.

Now that he had faced someone as strong as Dezrael, he wondered what other fiend he would face next.

He kept the Baleful Gale Reaper in his hands as he walked forward.

"No need to look back, there's nothing left for me if I suddenly give up now," Skullius said to pump himself up. It didn't help much.

He walked into the darkness and just like last time, he appeared at some kind of intersection.

That wasn't exactly accurate as there weren't any options aside from a set of double doors that loomed over the fake human.

Their height was roughly four meters and they looked to be made with a unique bluish black wood carved with the same design that Skullius and the others had seen at the gate leasing into the Labyrinth.

The flamboyant design of two different flavours of the same man was portrayed on the door as well.

Skullius gulped.

What was it now? Was it still something of a challenge again or was it something else entirely?

The Discount Human didn't get to wait for long as a notification popped before his eyes.

[The Labyrinth of the Yoke welcomes you to dine in the grand hall of Fulgardt after the preliminary test you have endured. You can choose to enter this great hall and honour Fulgardt's hospitality - a courtesy that need only be observed for a short time before leaving as you wish - or you can choose to continue challenging the thousands of bound warriors within the Labyrinth]

[The vestiges of Fulgardt will give rewards for either of the choices made]

After the notification popped up, a pathway suddenly appeared behind Skullius, releasing dangerous thickets of energy that were by no means inviting. Well, they invited, but they didn't promise good tidings.

Skullius wore a wry smile.

Things were switching up.