The Astral soul system

"Red,heads up"

[Shadow tendril] 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

A mass of darkness rose out of the ground, wrapping itself around Zaine’s discarded sword and throwing it towards him.

Raising his hand , Zaine caught it casually before giving Zyro a snarl

"I told you never to call me that, you golden freak"

He examined the sword still covered in webs and groaned. He couldn’t use Freya’s lightning to burn it off anymore. For one,he didn’t have Freya, and also, using it when the other two were here would have been a bad idea, even for him.

"Focus"

Zen muttered. The spider had been momentarily shocked by its one opponent suddenly becoming three, but it didn’t change the fact that it considering them enemies.

It suddenly let out a loud screech and the hundred or so smaller spiders started to charge, splitting up to attack the three.

All at once, their left eyes transformed, becoming completely black with a single white ring at the center, making them appear synced in a way.

[Charge]

[Flames of rage]

[Soul blade]

The crimson flames of rage erupted from the hilt of Zaine’s sword, coating it in a crimson aura that burned away the webs covering it and acted as a second layer to the sword.

He immediately dropped the charge but left the other two enhancements, swinging wildly at the oncoming army of spiders.

Zyro on the other hand had adopted a different method:Smash and bash.

He coated his feet in shadows, holding his shield in front of his face before dashing directly into the horde like a battering ram, bashing them all out of his way before heading directly towards the mother

Zen took a wide stance,dark energy gathering at his hand

[Soul blade]

"I’m assuming you three have a plan"

Zen didn’t reply, examining the battlefield as the horde approached him.

"If you keep fighting this way, you’ll run out of energy before you can even figure out how to hurt the mother"

That was always the issue wasn’t it. A plethora of skills and abilities but a pitifully low energy pool. It was their biggest shortcoming as of now.

That didn’t seem to bother Zen at all however as he struck at the closest beast to him, cutting through its fragile defense. None of that mattered right now. The only thing that did was to kill as many as possible as quickly as they could.

Zyro quickly activated shadow step and charge before dashing in a random direction, avoiding a web before immediately changing direction and heading directly towards it.

He quickly raised his shield and the sound of metal clashing with metal rang out as he just barely blocked one of its limbs, immediately rolling away from under it before it could take advantage of that.

"Dang! Zaine wasn’t kidding. You are strong"

Zyro grinned, acknowledging it’s strength.

He ducked and swerved, constantly having to avoid getting stomped by its massive armored appendages.

Firing a few soul guns into it’s eye, he muttered

"Let’s try this out. I’m pretty sure i saw something like this in a movie once"

He suddenly attached a large amount of shadow tendrils to the edges of the shield, holding onto the end like it was a rope.

[Charge (maximum power)]

[All stats doubled]

Using that short burst, Zyro stamped his foot and wound up to the extreme, pivoting with dangerous force before releasing all that pressure and swinging in a wide arc, slamming the shield directly into its face.

A disappointing clank rang out,weaker than the previous hit from Zaine and the shadow tendril fell apart. It clearly had little effect, perhaps even a standard punch would’ve done more.

"Disappointing "

Zyro mused, not sounding at all disappointed.

"Now isn’t the time to be experimenting with skills. What are you doing?!"

Theia yelled in his mind

"But I think I can get it to work "

Zyro said, retrieving the shield with a shadow tendril and immediately using it to protect himself.

"What are you even doing?! Equip a soul. Use one of your stronger skills. You already know basic attacks won’t work"

"Hmm? Oh, I’m not trying to beat it. Just keep it occupied"

"Wha-"

Before she could finish, Zyro gestured behind him to the other two who were absolutely decimating the spiderlings . Every swing of Zaine’s sword was a wide one, making sure multiple of them felt his wrath as he cleaved through. Zen on the other hand wasn’t as brutal but his efficiency wasn’t a bit lower than Zaine’s, even without a weapon. That calculating brutality was starting to show again and it didn’t pale in the slightest next to his doppelganger.

They weren’t saving energy at all, putting all their effort into mass slaughtering, almost like they wouldn’t need it once they were done

Zyro groaned seeing the beast preparing another web but he didn’t dare treat it lightly. Every time he dodged one of these,it took all his effort and focus .

The moment he moved to dodge, the beast instead charged, abandoning it’s attack before stomping down on him,or at least where he would be.

Unable to come to a complete stop, Zyro braced for impact as the massively leg slammed down on him.

*Crack*

Zyro’s eyes widened slightly as he felt the ground beneath him crack. Had this thing been holding back?

The moment he dashed away from under it, Zyro was immediately pinned by a web slamming him into the ground with his shield stuck to his body

"That’s what you get for treating a living creature like a videogame boss. What kind of an idiot repeats the same patterns over and over again? Even beasts aren’t completely stupid"

Minus the obvious physical pain and sting from Theia’s words, Zyro also noticed something else,a strange feeling of pins and needles all over his body.

"What is that?"

Theia quickly replied

"The spider also has a mild paralytic poison coating it’s body. However it’s effect on you is limited for some reason.

Zyro could think of a couple, and one of them was named Raven, but now wasn’t the time for that

Without rest it continuously stomped down over and over again, slowly slamming Zyro into the ground that cracked and caved beneath him.

[Hp: 160/200]

"Forty in one hit? That’s not good"

Multiple shadow tendrils suddenly popped out of the ground surrounding him and immediately wrapped him up in a pitch black cocoon.

[140/200]

[120/200]

[100/200]

"Um...guys? Not to pressure you or anything but..."

"Zaine "

Zen immediately called out

"Moron!"

Already knowing what to do, Zaine coated his feet in shadows as he unleashed all his buffs, his sword flashing with a menacing light

’It’s about time to finish this anyway ’

"Lilith!"

"Yes Master ~"

A deep crimson slowly tainted the white ring in his left eye.

[Death spire]

A familiar sensation filled Zen’s body. Knowledge,power, knowledge and power that didn’t belong to him yet at the same time did. He swung his fist into the ground instinctively, the crimson aura seeping into the ground and spreading all around him before short spikes of crystallized blood energy popped out of the ground beneath the few remaining beasts,impaling them.

The range and sheer power was lacking compared to the last time because he didn’t have that mysterious skill and Lilith’s weapon but it still did the job.

Zaine had used his pinball method, dashing back and forth while his enhanced sword did all the work and soon all that was left was a pile of corpses.

The two exchanged a glance of understanding and Zaine immediately dashed to get Zyro out of there while Zen stood still.

Before the beast could slam down against Zyro again, Zaine fired a few blasts directly into its face, diverting it’s attention.

"Focus"

Zyro muttered, his body suddenly phasing through the webs before he slammed his fist into its underbelly.

Almost as if it was pre-planned (it was) They both suddenly attacked its feet, tripping it up before suddenly wrapping shadow tendrils around it and using their bare hands to hold it down.

Seeing everything in place. Zen suddenly pulled out a box from the spacial ring. It was the last weapon box that hadn’t been opened. Of course he knew what was in it.

In less than a second he opened it and what was held in it were two sleek futuristic pistols, one optic white and the other pitch black.

’There’s already one in?... Raven’

Without hesitation, Zen aimed the black one at the beast, his hand steady like he’d done this a million times before.

"Fall"

He muttered ominously, and almost like it could hear him,it lit up with a futuristic glow and hum.

The following shot was quiet, almost too quiet . The only sound to mark the end of the spider’s life was the sound of armor being violently torn through by a speeding bullet.

The three watched the beast’s body go completely limp with little to no reaction. It was an expected end. The minute the three of them had shown up they’d already determined how it would die and how much effort it would take

"Whoo! That was fun amirite?"

The other two ignored him.

Zen checked his stats

[Astra: 0/260]

[Hp: 40/200]

That tracks.

Ironically,all that damage had been done by Lilith herself. Her skills not only cost Astra, but blood as well. Luckily his body was already working on healing.

Zaine stabbed his sword into the beast’s skull and started looking for the crystal while Zen returned the guns.

"Wait a second. I’ve never seen these before. Why didn’t you use them earlier?"

Theia asked

Zen shrugged.

"Ugh. Of course. At least inspect them so I can see it’s stats

[Dawn/Dusk]

[Rank: XXX]

Twin dual pistols representing the rising and falling of the golden sun. Made of the most precious materials that can be found in its home realm,forged by a mysterious grandmaster blacksmith of the Armstrong family, and assembled by §∆^#*-*???, this is the highest attainable peak. Due to its unique nature, it’s strength and rank is immeasurable

[Active skills: Dawn rise/Dusk fall]

Theia’s eyes practically turned into diamonds.

"Zen! Where the hell did you get these?! They’re probably one of if not THE most powerful beast gears currently in existence".

She finished reading the description , but suddenly got confused. Theia read through the entire description again but still didn’t find answers

"Where are the stats? Their probably around rank ten which is the limit. With how high their rank is, simply with the stat increase from them,you should be strong enough to challenge anyone up to level eight or nine without even having to actually use them"

Zen shook his head

"It’s not that kind of weapon "

He suddenly pulled out another box and opened it revealing rows and rows of carefully arranged bullets.

He took one and read it’s stats.

[Beast bullet (9mm)]

[Rank 3(A)]

A carefully crafted masterpiece, handmade by a mysterious grandmaster blacksmith of the Armstrong family, granting massive firepower in exchange for only one time use

[Attack power: 30]

[Active skills: Penetrate]

Seeing this, Theia understood.

The guns themselves were nothing more than a channeler. The actual power came from the bullets that were specially crafted for them . All purpose was put into their main function rather than the effects you’d expect from actual beast gear.

"Well that’s disappointing. It’s actually too strong to give stats"

She muttered.

"Do the bullets do anything special?"

Zen pulled out another one after looking carefully and inspected it

[Beast bullet (9mm incidniary round)]

A carefully crafted masterpiece, handmade by a mysterious grandmaster blacksmith of the Armstrong family, granting massive firepower in exchange for only one time use. Crafted from a specially obtained fire beast core

[Attack power: 50]

[Active skills: Incidniary round]

He checked another

[Frost bullet]

[Lightning bullet]

[Penetrating bullet]

Before he could continue, Zaine finally pulled out the beast crystal, prompting him to return the guns and ammo to their boxes and the spatial ring.

Looking around at the corpses littering everywhere, They considered looking to see if they had crystals. Usually beasts had crystals the moment they were born, but the mother spider had forced these ones to hatch prematurely so they weren’t sure if it was worth it.

Eventually they decided to check,after all, the only thing it would cost was time.

As she watched them, Theia considered spilling that that weird smell fluid was extremely paralytic venom, but seeing them obliviously thread it with no adverse effects, she figured it wasn’t important information. Might as well give them less to think about