A Reaper's Philosophy-Chapter 77: Just One More Night

"Something is wrong!" Evgenis exclaimed.

Seeing that there were no night crawlers attacking the city this time, she became worried. However, she had no time to dwell on the thought. Her beloved city was under siege and unlike the rest of her prideful citizens, she couldn’t just sit around doing nothing.

After Evgenis joined the fight, the pressure on Grayson reduced significantly, but Grayson couldn’t help but feel slightly regretful. Although Evgenis made the fight easier, she went straight for the Mythical Beasts, which Grayson needed to kill for himself.

Ordinary and Ascended Beasts no longer provided the kind of exousia he would need to improve, Legendary Beasts were scarce, and Heavenly Beasts were far beyond his reach at the moment.

Although he wasn’t a Mythical Cultivator, Mythical Beasts were what he needed to improve his strength.

The night went on like this with waves of Beasts trying to attack The Golden City. Although surprised, Evgenis was grateful to have not seen any night crawlers.

Night crawlers were ruthless and mindless creatures. They were nearly similar to demons in appearance and ability. They had incredible vitality in the nighttime and could heal broken bones almost instantly; a severed limb would grow back in a matter of seconds. Their bodies were decorated with patches of different shades of grey. They had razor sharp claws and even sharper teeth decorating their ugly faces.

Night crawlers, are always top dogs in whatever realm they were. Their heaven defying vitality and incredible speed makes them unrivaled amongst any beast of the same realm. It’s no surprise for night crawlers to defeat beasts of an even higher realm.

They do not absorb beast cores or eat anything to improve their strength like other beasts. They simply kill for the sake of killing.

The second night passed and it seemed to be the same. Only waves of beasts attacked, earlier than usual, with no night crawlers amongst their ranks. They had initially wanted to send a scout to gather some information and see what had changed, but after what happened to the previous scouts, no one was willing to go.

On the brighter side of things, despite Evgenis being there, Grayson’s kills still went up significantly. A satisfied grin appeared on his face as he looked at his kills’ window.

{Theós System

Name: Grayson

Lifespan: ∞

Objective: Kill 20 of five different kinds of Ascended Beasts each to evolve.

Kills Record:

[Ordinary Beasts]

...

[Ascended Beasts]

...

[Mythical Beasts]

Mythical Beast: Black-Smoked Red Wolf (1/40)

Mythical Beast: Scaled Caracal (266/40)

Mythical Beast: Swamp Golem (145/40)

Mythical Beast: Purple-Haired Ogre (230/40)

Mythical Beast: Armored Ant (300/40)

Mythical Beast: Diamond-Head Serpent (189/40)

[Legendary Beasts]

-

[Heavenly Beasts]

-}

Suddenly, within Grayson’s dark cloud, something seemed to be moving deep within his soul. A bright light shone inside the dark cloud. Surrounding the light were 3 glowing orbs. Within the light, one could see a humanoid figure floating.

"Azrael!" Grayson said out loud in excitement.

It was now the third day since Elda began to inscribe the protective array. She was more than halfway through with the array, which made Evgenis incredibly hopeful.

’Just one more night.’ She thought to herself.

Once they got through this night, it wouldn’t matter what the beasts were planning, they wouldn’t be able to get through the protective array.

It was now evening and no beast had shown up yet. Azrael was still inside the dark cloud, but Grayson could tell it was only a matter of time till he had finished evolving. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Nightfall quickly came and Azrael finally stepped out of the light. A small portion of the dark cloud then appeared flat on the ground. A large, dark hand, clad in black armor, stuck out of the cloud like a scene from a horror movie.

Azrael then dragged himself out of the dark cloud, releasing a suffocating pressure. Even Elda who was inscribing the protective array hundreds of kilometers away felt the intimidating pressure. Like an ancient beast, Azrael rose out of the dark cloud and immediately kneeled before Grayson.

Evgenis who was watching this whole scene had long pulled out her sword, ready to defend herself. Seeing Azrael and how intimidating his aura was, Evgenis believed him to be a new type of beast here to attack her city. To her surprise, this so called beast kneeled before Grayson. She began stare at Grayson differently, many questions ran through her mind.

The young man before her has surprised her these past 2 days time and time again. He was only an Ascended Host, yet he was able to hold his own against hords of beasts of a higher realm. She knew he was no weaker than her and clearly still had more to him that she hasn’t seen. She simply couldn’t see through this young man.

"Master, it has been too long." Azrael said in a deep and powerful voice.

Azrael evidently looked different since Grayson had last seen him. He now stood 8 feet tall and was clad with black armor that looked more menacing than his previous one.

Transparent messages suddenly appeared in front of Azrael as he knelt before Grayson.

{Welcome to Evnoia}

{Checking compatibility with exousia.}

{Compatible}

{The Theós System accepts you as a worthy host.}

{Kill 10 Ordinary Beasts to familiarize yourself with exousia.}

{Good luck!}

Grayson didn’t even have the time to admire Azrael. Immediately after, beasts began to come out of the forest behind.

"8pm, right on schedule!" Evgenis said surprisingly.

Azrael then rose and turned to face the beasts. Seeing more than a thousand beasts charging at them, Azrael couldn’t help but be surprised as well.

"Master, what did you get yourself into this time?" Azrael said solemnly.

"Let’s just take care of these beasts quickly and catch up after." Grayson said to Azrael as he absorbed the exousia from around the environment and atmosphere.

The exousia went into his core and flowed through the paths of the Ascended realm. A few seconds later, he pushed through his bottleneck, with little to no effort, and broke through to the Mythical realm. A large explosion sounded from where Grayson stood as an intimidating aura blanket the battlefield.

"Did he just break through to another realm? In these conditions!" Evgenis said looking at Grayson incredulously.

The feats he kept performing were getting more and more ridiculous. She felt like she was getting even further from seeing through Grayson. It was like a thick mist was covering him.

The aura of a Mythical Host raged out of Grayson. Originally, he wanted to wait before breaking through since it is not safe to break through so many times in short periods of time. This puts a strain on the paths, and damages the foundation of one’s previous realm.

However, Grayson was a special case. His body had already been reinforced by the dark cloud. Even before entering Evnoia, he had the body of a Mythical Host. After death refined his body and soul, his body was now comparable to a Legendary Host if not stronger.

Seeing the thousands of beasts approaching, Grayson could already tell that his power was not enough. Doing this for three nights in a row, even Grayson could feel his fatigue increasing.

"Let’s go." Grayson said assertively and was about to charge the beasts alongside Azrael and Evgenis.

However, what happened next astonished them. Azrael leaped forward faster than anyone else and conjured a giant black sword, almost as big as him.

Thick, transparent lines could be seen all around the giant sword. It looked like it was in pieces. Within the lines, however, was a dark cloud moving about. This made the sword look somewhat alive.

Azrael instinctively swung his sword towards the charging beasts. A dark cloud flew across from the sword and raged at incoming beasts. The cloud was now furiously rising off the ground like fire.

(SKRRIIIIIII)

Hundreds of beasts screeched in pain after making contact with the flaming dark cloud, but they did not burn. Instead, one after another, they began to turn to stone. In almost an instant, hundreds of beasts were turned to stone as the dark cloud continued to spread.

Azrael was the most surprised of all. He could feel immense power within himself, like he has never felt before. Currently he had no idea just how powerful he was. Just a casual swing of his sword laid waste to hundreds beasts instantly.

Transparent messages began to appear in front of Grayson and he couldn’t help but exclaim out loud, "What the fuck!"

{Your shadow has killed a Mythical Beast: Scaled Caracal}

{Your shadow has killed a Mythical Beast: Diamond Serpent}

{Your shadow has killed a Mythical Beast: Armored Ant}

{...}

Hundreds of messages began flooding Grayson’s view. Grayson pushed them aside and continued to watch the beasts helplessly turn to stone. He was very much satisfied with Azrael’s performance and felt like it was definitely worth the wait.

Grayson then began to look at the 3 orbs inside his dark cloud and felt like they looked familiar, but could not quite remember where he had seen something like this before.

’My past and present consciousness are slowly becoming one. In time I will recover all of my memory.’ Grayson thought to himself, no longer stressing to remember what the orbs were.

’First Armando had transformed, and now, Azrael. Does it mean any one of my shadows can evolve like this?’ Grayson continued to think to himself.

Azrael clearly had a much greater change than Armando did. Grayson assumed it was cause of his exposure to exousia which affected Azrael’s evolution.

Grayson began to feel excited thinking about what great change a shadow like Terry would have if she were to evolve. Grayson suddenly awoke from his daze and became alarmed.

As the beasts continued to panic and scatter away from the fiery dark cloud, beasts that didn’t seem to be affected by the dark cloud, slowly began to march out from behind the beasts turned to stone. They crashed the stoned beasts beneath their claws and passed them like they weren’t even there.

"Night crawlers, and a lot of them!" Evgenis exclaimed out loud in despair.