Chapter 11: 11. Hunter

[ You have reached level 5. New skill selections available for Chaos Disciple: Path of the Corrupted Monk. ]

Roman pulled his hand away. Smoke drifted from his stinging palm; the skin was raw and blistered. For a moment he considered trying to submerge himself in the bright flare of pain, to distance himself from the sight in front of him. He forced himself to accept reality: the tiny torso, no longer squirming, its head reduced to colorful, gelatinous streams of liquid that had half-congealed around its neck like candle wax.

Nausea roiled in his stomach. He slammed the car door shut and turned, spewing a flood of hot bile. After a couple more retches, his empty stomach had no more to surrender.

Mixie’s haughty voice drifted from behind. “Disgusting creature.”

Roman bent over at the waist, supporting himself against the SUV with both hands. He wanted to curse at the shopkeeper but he decided to save his breath. Mixie wouldn’t give a shit.

So this is what you are now, Ro’. The thought should have felt like a judgment. Instead it was cold, heartless. The truth, nothing more or less.

He’d always known he had a cruel streak, even if he refused to accept it sometimes. There was a reason he had been expelled from high school. Back then he’d always prowled about, looking for some reason to be offended so he could prove his dominance. At one point he had deluded himself he’d gotten his shit together, turning to martial arts as a way of channeling his destructive tendencies into a controlled environment. But no, he had only further refined his capacity for violence.

That’s why he’d been disqualified from his last official fight before returning that night to face Oscar Martinez Garcia. Why he’d fallen from the public eye after they moved on to the next controversy: he’d gotten frustrated and resorted to illegal strikes, hospitalizing an up-and-coming fighter who never stepped foot in the ring again.

[ You confront the harsh truths. +1 to Will. ]

He focused on the words for a moment in mute incomprehension. A welcome addition, though his spinning head refused to think too deeply about the implication.

He wiped a line of dark green drool from the side of his mouth and stood up.

“You did what you had to do,” said John.

Roman scoffed. “No, I did what I did.”

Silence settled over the area except the soft hum of static from the SUV's radio. Roman wrestled his intrusive thoughts under control and focused on the five new class skills available to him.

[ Astral Communion - Your mind is a conduit to Chaos. Walk the planes of dreamers and the dead. The warmth of life may lure a denizen from the Beyond, allowing you to welcome it into your body. ]

He dismissed this option immediately after reading it. Some eldritch horror possessing him would be a significant boost to his prowess, sure. In return, he’d be trapped within his own body, with no guarantee he’d ever regain control once a ‘denizen’ found that it rather preferred the mortal world.

The existence of such a double-edged skill sobered him up slightly. He might not be quite insane enough to succumb to the temptation, but other people would be. No doubt Players throughout the world had already sacrificed themselves upon the altar of power, further supplemented with generous Patrons and bountiful opportunities.

As addicting as it felt to progress through levels and have his body refined beyond his natural limits, Roman couldn’t become overconfident or another Player might squash him like an insect.

The other useless option was called [ Harness Belief ]. The ability allowed him to ‘become an unholy incarnation of Chaos’ and collect Faith from his followers. From what he gathered from the description, others would begin to view him as some cult leader, becoming obsessively devoted to him over time. Faith served as an external repository of soul energy independent of his own reserves, able to power his other skills. 

The downside, ignoring any ethical concerns, was that it scaled based on his Charisma, which still languished in the negatives.

That left three viable choices.

[ Impose Will: Create a Domain in your vicinity centered around you. Within your Domain, you are empowered and your foes are weakened. Range and influence scale with Will. ]

[ Conjure Weapon: Reach into the Abyssal Treasury and select an enchanted weapon. Begin the journey to prove your might, and one day unlock the supreme arsenals of Chaos. Available options and duration of summoning scale with martial feats. ] 

[ Tread World: Stomp upon reality. Walk unharmed upon any surface, from air to magma to whirling Chaos itself. While active, movement speed scales greatly with Agility. ] 

He explained his choices to the others, even if Mixie ignored him and stared off into space. If the shopkeeper warmed up to Roman one day, his advice might prove invaluable. No harm in making an effort to include him in the hope that he’d one day take the bait.

“[ Tread World ] is probably an option because you chose [ Flash Step ] as your first class skill.” John rubbed his chin, brow wrinkling in concentration. “It’s actually a lot better than it seems at first glance. At some point, if you invest enough into Agility, it’d basically be a way to fly, as well as exploring all kinds of locations you might not be able to otherwise. Still, I think the other two are better.”

Roman found, to his surprise, that he enjoyed theorycrafting about these potential upgrades. Better than wallowing in self-pity. “I think I’m leaning towards [ Impose Will ].”

John raised an eyebrow. “Smart choice, actually. I thought you’d go for the heavy hitter, but you do already have a pretty powerful offensive ability. Focus on increasing the rank of your existing attack, and it’ll be just as good in the short term. A Domain is all-around utility that will be useful from now until you reach your peak.”

Roman leaned against the SUV and closed his eyes to rest them for a moment. Damn, he was exhausted. “Yeah, I make good decisions sometimes. Gonna see what Quirk I get, but I doubt it’ll change anything.”

“Even if you regret passing up on one, you’ll be able to choose them again at the other benchmarks. Level 10, 25, 50, and 100. Probably not the best idea though, as the options tend to improve with each tier.”

Roman nodded in response and pulled open his node screen. Before investing his NP, he once more considered if gambling on a random Quirk was the right choice. He wasn’t even guaranteed to land on an improvement over selecting a specific five-node cluster. 

But he couldn’t afford to second guess himself constantly. There was no guarantee even if he chose a Quirk he wouldn’t end up regretting his decision in the end. The plethora of options felt almost insidious; it reminded him of the paradox of choice, where more options leads to greater hesitancy and dissatisfaction with any particular selection.

With a thought, he threw five NP into the fires of [ Tempt Fate ]. A random six-node cluster lit up, skipping two prerequisite Quirks. Roman clenched his fists in satisfaction. Fuck yes. This could’ve been so much worse. 

[ You have unlocked the Quirk Dancer’s Grace. +8 to Agility, +2 to Will, +1 to Charisma. ]

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[ Dancer’s Grace: Move through the world with beauty and elegance. A dancer always knows their place in the world. Your propioception is perfect, and you acquire moderate resistance to physical disorientation. ] 

He soon discovered an unfortunate side effect of the Quirk. Though he felt a control over every inch of his body better than anything he had achieved even when entering the flow of combat, it made him all the more aware of the sickening changes throughout his body.

Roman gritted his teeth as his physique was reshaped. Bulging muscles smoothed out, sacrificing a touch of bulk for greater density. Pain flared throughout his body as his muscle insertions shifted. Tendons snapped. Fascia tore as muscles stretched the connective tissue sheathing them beyond its limits.

Within moments his transformation was complete. Most of it seemed purely aesthetic, such as his wonky four-pack of abs readjusting into a proper six-pack, but he also felt looser than before, more mobile, his genetic imperfections smoothed away.

Damn, that pain was annoying though.

After quickly updating his companions, Roman selected the [ Impose Will ] option. He tested it out and was pleased to see that his improved propioception seemed to have benefited his ability to visualize the network of soul energy flowing through his body.

Unlike [ Chaos Touch ], his new class skill manipulated his soul energy without requiring his direction. The complex web of bronze power within his head flared, and he could feel his surroundings within about a five foot radius, almost like an extension of his body.

Eagerness to explore the limits of his newfound ability wiped his mental exhaustion away. The Domain was not large enough for him to experiment much with [ Flash Step ], but he smiled at the result of integrating [ Chaos Touch ].

While he still had to cycle bronze energy through his hands, nothing happened at first. Then he focused all of his will on a single point on the ground, right at the periphery of his influence. He insisted that reality was wrong, and that the tips of his fingers actually ended at that specific spot. To his delight, asphalt rippled before transforming into a patch of soil.

“Fuck yes,” he whispered to himself.

Even Mixie appeared to be glancing at his experiment from the corner of his eyes, though it was impossible to be certain with those diamond orbs.

Despite his body’s desperate complaints to slow down for a moment and take a nap---just thirty minutes--Roman shook his head. Time to hunt. The carrion golems back in the parking lot no longer seemed like as great of a threat after his recent upgrades.

Those were people, and you want to round them up and slaughter them like animals. For some reason, the thought didn’t particularly bother him anymore.

Roman looked down his scalded palm. He hadn’t even noticed the blisters had popped open, serous fluid dripping down his wrist. “Did you ever think I was really fucked up? Like one of those sociopaths that just uses everyone around them?”

“No, not a sociopath,” said John. “But not normal, and honestly, probably not a very good person most of the time. Though how many people really are, and how many are just pretending?”

Roman remained silent as he strolled over to Birch’s Corolla. He considered taking the SUV instead, but the thought of tossing the infant car seat out and sitting on the pile of the congealing blood in the driver’s seat made him taste bile in the back of his throat.

Maybe not a complete sociopath after all.

Fortunately Birch had left the keys in the ignition. Mixie settled into the backseat, his posture impeccable, golden robes billowing about him. John materialized in the front seat, eyes straight ahead; though the guide still appeared much the same to Roman’s [ Hunter’s Eye ], this close something about John looked even more hollow, like a carefully crafted illusion.

The car sputtered to life and Roman drove out of the gas station. Mixie glanced back at his gas station one last time.

As Roman drove the short distance back to the parking lot, he reviewed his attributes.

Base Attributes

Strength: 28
Agility: 31
Endurance: 27
Will: 27
Perception: 23
Charisma: 0

Free points: 2

He invested a point into Strength and, after a moment’s hesitation, one into Charisma. The first step to winning Mixie over to his side.

His attributes alone were a definite improvement over what they’d been during his frantic escape last time. The carrion golems The experience requirement appeared to double per level, since his status screen revealed that level 6 required 3200 total experience. If that trend held, soon enough an entire city of monsters wouldn’t be enough to advance him a single level.

As he pulled into the parking lot, the sig0ht wiped away his various musings on the system. No deformed abominations wandered about. Had they been summoned elsewhere?

He stopped the vehicle and stepped outside, looking about the area. His gaze lingered for a moment on the dark forest--somewhere in their depths, a Chaos Gate awaited him. He flooded bronze energy into his eyes, curious if his enhanced vision could detect any traces of the portal within.

Nothing of the sort caught his attention. There was, however, a figure crouched within the branches of a tree on the edge of the forest. Even his Perception would not have allowed him to notice the slight humanoid form if [ Hunter’s Eye ] hadn’t picked up its hazy silver glow. Roman frowned, wasting a second as he considered how to deal with the carrion golem waiting to ambush him.

Steel flashed.

Roman shifted to the side. There was no pain, only a spray of blood as the blow meant to decapitate him tore a chunk from his left shoulder instead. Metal squealed as the offending projectile pierced through the vehicle behind him.

In that moment, he caught a glimpse of a woman’s face as the figure shifted positions in her perch.

Another Player.

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