Grey laughed, streaking shadows following his feet as he slid across the grass to the side.
A leaping monkey jumped down from the trees, its arms cocked back into a twin pair of steel slashing scythes attached right to its wrists.
Just as it was about to hit, Grey vanished in a puff of darkness and black fog, appearing where he had been moments ago.
A pulse of energy came from his cargo pants as he burnt through half the reserves just for shits and giggles.
His SPD increased by 50 in a single instant, his hand burning into a red gold glow that sizzled the air into a raring sear.
He pierced right through the monkey’s back, churning through its flesh and bone with nothing more than an arm and a savage sense of humor.
With a yank he pulled his arm free and then kicked the monkey away, dismissing the notifications about the new Free Stats he gained and taking a look at the reward.
—
Name: Scythe Monkey’s Tail.
Rarity: Uncommon
Accepted Type: Branching
Rejected Type: Linear; Recursive; Resonant
Description: Everyone needs extra length, but you’ll have to settle for an extra limb instead. It might not give you the same sensation, but hey, some ladies like furries.
Abilities: A new limb with functionally the same strength as one of your arms up to 100 STR.
—
It was nice and everything. But why the hell did it have a butt plug on the end of it?
Grey’s lip twitched, holding the tail up and looking at the silvery chrome piece on the end of it. It tapered to one end and had lines of circuitry running faintly across its surface.
Did he want a tail? Sure, it looked badass and it might actually be useful. It felt like the sort of thing Paladin Spirit might be able to adapt well for him.
But he wasn’t about to stick it up his ass.
Grey stuck it to the small of his back and felt a jolt of electricity and then a slight burning.
The system did its thing and soon he had a fifth limb sticking out from where his tailbone was. He swung it around a bit and then nodded. Seemed he was right about Paladin Spirit.
It might not be helpful with ranged weapons, but it seemed it was an Ability designed to be useful no matter what your race was. He immediately began to feel like he had had this fifth limb all his life.
"Sixth." Grey said with a cheeky grin. "Alright, should be close now."
This was the first treasure that Grey had come across after leaving the range of the outpost that he deemed worthy of actually using. The rest of them were just a range of offensive and defensive treasures that were inferior to what he already had.
The ruins seemed to be getting a bit harder, but only relatively speaking. Grey had managed just fine with the former Goblin Warlord Slayer alone. Now his Stamina was functionally off the charts and replenished even faster than before.
He felt like he was smurfing right now.
But he didn’t grow arrogant—at least not any more arrogant than he usually was, anyway.
The vampire pimp’s Instance had been right next to the outpost as well and he had lost count of the number of times he actually died in there.
The difficulty of the ruins had no bearing on the difficulty of the Instances you might accidentally stumble onto. In fact, the ruins were probably just here to help the participants of the Genesis Games gather stats, treasures, and improvement.
This wasn’t entirely accurate, but it was accurate enough for Grey.
’Here it is.’
Grey exhaled slowly, his tail swaying behind him, then scratching an itch on his ass.
Up ahead there was the first body of water Grey had found outside of the city. Even in Zone 234’s city, the only water he had seen not coming out of a tap were the fountains. This was truly a rare sight.
The body of water was more pond than lake. Even in the darkness, the moon’s light alone was more than enough to illuminate its beauty and the greenery that floated on its surface.
But the water just felt oddly still. You could see clear through to the bottom with the help of the moon’s rays alone, almost like not a single hint of life was allowed to continue here.
The discomfort prickled at Grey’s skin.
’There better not be another backstabbing bitch in there. Anything else, I can handle. Pretty girls with daggers in their smiles? Well, I can handle that too, but I’d rather not. I haven’t gotten some in forever.’
Grey laughed at his own stupidity. He hadn’t thought about Amunet in a while, probably because it genuinely pissed him off.
It seemed he hadn’t been lucky enough to find anyone he could trust in this place yet, and that triggered him in ways he didn’t want to confront.
And every time he might have, they seemed to like to die.
Who knew how long Edmun would last? Maybe the Bishop was finding fault with the old knight right this moment.
Grey closed his eyes, his teeth clenching.
’Faster. I need to get stronger faster.’
Grey pushed off and took a step onto the lake.
His Helion Frame was weaker at night, but it wasn’t useless. The moon was still giving off strong enough solar rays for him to use, and his Frame didn’t rely on solar winds alone to be strong.
It could pull in its own magnetism as well...
And make him light enough to walk right across the surface of a lake as though he weighed nothing at all.
He felt the world ripple before it happened.
—
[Congratulations, Genesis Candidate! You have triggered a Rare Arc Instance! Good luck and don’t die! :)]
—
Grey felt his body squeezed down from all sides until he was compressed like a pruny, puckering asshole.
Then he vanished in a pop.