The Astral soul system-Chapter 116 - 60 seconds

"Finally,it gets interesting" Zaine said out loud after seeing the quest.

Looking at the figure, he was actually quite skinny with only a pair of shorts on and his bare chest on display.

"Brat! You’re pretty arrogant. Don’t you -"

"Blah blah blah blah! All you guys ever do is talk. My patience is running low and i have a few more of you cunts to murder so just shut the fuck up and fight me!"

The gang member didn’t appreciate Zaine’s tone and arrogance but didn’t let it get on his nerves.

"Fine. Get ready for die at the hands of -"

"Yeah, Bruno,i know who you are,so don’t bother with the fancy speech. Just tell me where your boss is"

Bruno stopped and looked at Zaine curiously. He didn’t know about the system or it’s read function so he was confused about how this stranger knew his name. Well it didn’t matter, he just had to put them both down and whatever they were doing here wouldn’t matter,it would be good practice for what was to come next.

Zaine dashed towards Bruno, swinging wildly with his sword with his full strength.

He was stopped in place as Bruno held the blade, stopping it without being forced back.

Zaine looked at Bruno’s palm that was dripping blood but it didn’t seem to bother the man.

In front of Zaine’s eyes, he suddenly began to bulk up,his entire body gaining muscle before orange fur started growing over his new body. In a few seconds he was towering over Zaine,at a terrifying ten feet tall and with limbs the size of canons.

"Tiger gang,tiger transformation ability.... how original" were the only words Zaine could find it in his volcano of a heart to say.

"Grrrr!!! I’ll clober you!"

A silver flash suddenly appeared behind the man and before he knew it,a katana was making its way to his abdomen.

Hurriedly,he let go of Zaine’s sword and with a speed that didn’t match his size, sprinted out of the way, although not in time to escape completely. He held his side which had a small cut that was bleeding but it only lasted for a second before drying up visibly in front of them.

Zaine looked at Sable and grinned.

"Go. Leave this one to me"

"What?"

"There are still at least a few dozen rooms in this place and they could have backup coming. This guy should be the biggest so I’ll take care of him while you deal with the scrubs. Plus it’s normal for gangs to do shady stuff behind the scenes. A dark creepy abandoned building at night? Now that’s not suspicious at all. Throw a wrench in whatever it is they have planned,if it’ll piss these guys off, I’m all for it "

Sable thought about it for a second before dashing towards Bruno who was getting ready to attack.

The man brandished his claws, attempting to crush her but Sable quickly adjusted her stance, holding the sword at her side to take the hit before shifting it as his paw grazed it to turn his strength against him and to give her leverage to dash past him. Sable never stopped running and didn’t bother using her advantageous position to attack, dashing right past him and towards the door behind him. Without missing a beat, she kicked the door that was much weaker than the previous one down and ran in.

"Clever girl" Bruno mused as he watched her run. He didn’t bother chasing her, probably because he thought he could kill Zaine soon and go get her later.

Smiling maniacally, Zaine picked up his sword and looked at Bruno with a violent light in his eyes.

"Ready to die?"

The huge anthropomorphic tiger stared at him for a few seconds before suddenly appearing in front of him at a speed he struggled to follow. Zaine raised his sword to block the incoming attack but was still sent flying by the massive paw into a wall.

"That smarts! Theia what’s this guys speed index?"

"About 36 when compared to yours, at least in his transformed state. "

"Great,so i can only barely keep up with him using Charge. How much Astra do I have left?"

[Astra: 105/200]

Zaine groaned. Destroying that door had taken too much, right now his energy pool was too low to be actually used in a battle. He’d realized his main problem in all his fights. His strength speed and endurance were decent, and he had useful skills but not enough energy to use it.

’Alright. Looks like I’m gonna have to do this in hit with all my strength’

By the time he finished his thoughts, he’d slammed into the wall.

[-12 HP]

Using soul movement, Zaine had slowed himself down and reduced the impact but he still took damage. He pointed his hand at Bruno and a glow appeared in them. Seeing this, Bruno dashed in to attack swiping with his large claws but at the last second, Zaine abandoned his attack before using a mix of dashing and shadow steps to get out of the way.

This went on for a few minutes: Zen dodging and occasionally getting a hit in, however he couldn’t seem to knock the guy down. He was a tank!

He suddenly heard Freya and Lilith’s voice from the depths of his soul.

"He lacks a means of attack at long range~ Master My spear has a long enough range with ranged skills that can skewer this peasant from a mile away"

"Yeah,or you could use my swords to create a chain lightning effect and fry this guy with all the metal that’s in this room"

Zaine considered both their points but in the end he’d only have four seconds to do anything with their skills and one shot, considering Lilith’s soul would drain his blood and Freya’s would electrocute him if he used them too much. He needed a plan,a way to take this guy out at once and still have enough energy for the rest of the fight.

Zaine briefly activated charge and dashed towards Bruno thrusting forward. As soon as he saw him move his hand, Zaine dropped the sword in mid air and switched to a punch to the abdomen, activating soul blade.

It had some effect but just like everything else the blade only went in a few inches before losing effect.

While he was still stunned , Zaine fired a soul gun while his hand was still in his flesh, sending bits of charred flesh flying as it attacked his insides.

"Grrrraaaa! Get off!!!"

Bruno grabbed Zaine with both his hands and started squishing him, attempting to crush him in his hands.

Hearing the sound of his bones breaking and the notifications of losing Hp he decided to act fast.

[-3]

[-4]

[-3]

[-2]

[Soul form]

[...]

[Failed]

Zaine tried but wasn’t able to fulfill the requirement of clearing his mind so he was unable to phase through. The constant notifications and his unstable emotions,it was just... too much.

’Fuck! Alright fine. Frey-’

He suddenly hesitated as he realized he’d have to deal with the lightning again. He’d already done that today, and he still felt a bit uncomfortable.

[-5]

[-3]

[-7]

[-9]

"Grrr! Let go of me!"

Zaine struggled and started throwing soul guns but they were ineffective and only made him stagger a bit.

"Grrrrr! Theia! Get. Me out of this!"

In a slightly panicked tone Theia appeared next to him and started talking.

"Okay,i know this might sound weird, but I need you to get worked up. Get angry upset,scared, anything. "

"I AM ANGRY! I. AM. ALWAYS. ANGRY]

Bruno didn’t know who Zen was talking to but ever since the fight started, he’d heard this person saying weird stuff to thin air and acting erratically,so he just ignored it.

"Crazy boy"

He muttered

"I know, but you need to somehow stimulate your life force, activate your body’s instincts. You said you’re always angry, but your body needs to know it. If your body recognizes the threat it will activate some functions to protect you. Ohhhh Zen would be able to do this " Theia muttered out the last part unintentionally.

Zaine had almost forgot that his current body was no longer that of a humans. He didn’t know how to do what Theia was talking about, but if it was just to use his anger,he could do that.

Zaine grabbed bother of the paws crushing him and growled. He still had some energy left and he wasn’t going to waste it.

[Charge]

"I said . LET GO"

[Detected intense emotion(Rage)]

[Hosts biology is reacting to emotional spectrum]

[Beginning transformation]

[Detected that host is not in the Astral plane]

[Current realm: Gaia’s grave: unawakened, infantile,basic]

[Transformation limited]

[Calculating..... : 60 seconds of transformation left]

All these notifications passed by in a few seconds but Zaine barely registered it. He suddenly felt like he was choking up, like his lungs were being suffocated from inside his body but it only lasted for a second before it was replaced by a different sensation: change. That was the only way to describe it, it wasn’t good or bad, just different.

A malicious black and red glow started emanating from his body and he suddenly felt his strength increase. With a little more effort he slightly seperated Bruno’s paws while Bruno himself was getting slightly blinded.

"W-what?!"

Zaine snarled and dashed, not back, but forward towards Bruno. He somehow curved into the air before they collided, but his foot still collided with Bruno’s face, sending him flying onto his ass.

Zaine landed on the ground gently and looked at himself, although he couldn’t see much since he was fully covered and with a mask but he could still tell something was different qualitatively, starting with the glow he could see through his clothes. He was still completely humanoid but with a few slight changes.

Something about this just felt right but at the same time didn’t, like he didn’t belong here, like the very laws of this world denied his existence. He closed his eyes on instinct and felt something: a mental switch.

Something in his essence told him it was some sort of return button, that all he had to do was flip it and he’d return to where he belonged,where he’d be safe. Despite the strange urge,he resisted. First of all he didn’t know what would happen if he did flip it, secondly he felt something still tethering him to this realm, although it wasn’t a strong connection.

"Zaine! Snap out of it."

Zaine opened his eyes, getting out of his trance. Right, now was no time for daydreaming. He was on a deadline.

[53 seconds left]

Bruno got up with a groan and had to wait a bit for his eyes to adjust. He looked back at Zaine and for the first time showed genuine fear.

"W-what are you?"

Zaine didn’t understand because he didn’t know what he looked like and although Bruno couldn’t see the whole thing himself,a visible black aura had surrounded Zaine and a visible aura was coming out of his right eye in the shape of a multicolored flame. Ignoring all that, something about him just felt... wrong.

Zaine looked at Bruno and without thinking about anything other than the one minute he had, dashed in.

The ground tremored under the force he released and a visible crack formed as he dodged, the malicious aura following his every moment.

Not expecting this speed, Zaine overshot and passed by Bruno who could barely see him move and only saw a glowing black and red cloud.

While his body moved forward, Zaine looked back at bruno whose mouth was gaping from shock.

[Soul movement]

[Shadow steps]

The dark aura surrounding him suddenly started to stick to his body until he was just a glowing black and red humanoid figure.

Bruno turned around, still unsure about what just happened and was even more shocked when he saw a featureless humanoid directly in front of him, and where its right eye was supposed to be was glowing

Before he could do anything, the figures fist landed on his abdomen and like a ragdoll, he was sent flying for miles.

Bruno could feel all the wind being knocked out of him from that single hit. This was bad! Whatever was going on it was definitely very bad!!!

He was about to crash into the wall when at the last second he saw a flash of black and dark red and the same entity was right in front of him in mid-air. He felt like time had frozen as the strange creature loooked him in the eye. He didn’t know how but he could feel it was very angry.

Another punch landed on him sending him flying in the opposite direction.

’This can’t keep going on. I’ll die this way ’

Hoping for the best,Bruno randomly stretched his hand out and luckily his sharp claws grabbed the ground. He flew for a few more meters but managed to stop himself.

He urgently brandished his claws in the direction the entity was coming from. Almost nonchalantly,the figure stopped in front of him and swatted the claw away like it was a fly.

Seeing his opportunity,Bruno picked up a metal pipe from the ground and thrust it towards its heart.

With an inhumane manouver the entity swerved like it was a simple streak of light and circled him, picking something up in the process that turned out to be his sword.

The entity dashed towards Bruno who swung his pipe in expectation but the entity completely avoided it and ducked under before delivering a kick to his abdomen, sending him into the air.

’This is insane. I’m not even fighting a human "

By now his vision was blurry. Looking up he saw the terrifying figure floating right above him with its sword pointed towards his heart.

The black miasma seperated from the entity to reveal Zaine who was still glowing in his transformed state.

"Tell the devil an old friend said hi" 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

With that final remark of spite, Zaine plunged his sword into the man’s chest, piercing his heart and throwing him back down with the force from his push.

They both crashed into the ground, leaving a giant crater that extended to the building’s foundation and even deeper in the ground as dust spread everywhere.

The sound of Zaine’s heavy breathing was all that could be heard for a few seconds as he struggled to catch his breath.

Zaine looked down at the dead body of bruno that had reverted to its previous pitiful state , and already conveniently in a grave

"I did it"

"Good job little berserker. You okay?"

"Congratulations master~ That was...shocking to stay the least"

"Honestly, I’m just surprised you’re not naked. That was a lot of power and regular clothes aren’t-"

Almost as if on cue, Zaine’s mask broke off, and looking down,he noticed there was barely anything left of his shoes

Theia suddenly appeared to him.

"Quickly, find a reflective surface and find out what you look like"

Zaine perked up a bit but right at that second.

[Transformation cancelled]

[Reverting to human appearance]

"Bummer"

Zaine felt his otherworldly strength leave and felt a wave of disappointment follow.

[Reward granted: Instant level up]

[Name: Zaine Animus](LV 16)

[Species: (Rank 1 Astral) (bloodline - ?????)]

[Class: soul sage]

[Profession: Berserker (Arcane)]

[True name/soul name:???]

[HP 54/200]

[Astra: 0/200]

[Strength: 10]

[Agility: 15]

[Endurance: 10]

[Intelligence: 15]

[Charm: 50](bloodline effect)

[ Wisdom: 20]

[Stat points: 3]

[Skill points: 5]

"Would you look at that. Looks like the system agrees with Freya’s nickname"

Zaine plopped down to sit as he read through the screen

"Shouldn’t we go help Sable?"

"She can take care of herself, besides , I’m no use to her now".

"Are you sure? I think she could use your support, she seemed pretty scared "

Zaine sighed

"As much as I hate Zen,i know he knows strength when he sees it. If he trusts her to fight for him,so do I"

Zaine suddenly felt a strange feeling go through him, like a chill just went down his spine.

He suddenly felt like something about the world had changed. He hurriedly rushed to the window and looked out, stunned by what he saw

"That’s a..."