System Change

As Derek had found out before when he was farming Void Beasts by himself, the call to draw the beasts near was near instant, but their response was not. So, once he watched the purple beam of void energy disappear and focused on regaining his mana, he let out a sigh.

“If we are going to be farming Void Beasts, shouldn’t we message Avery and Silvi to come out? I’m sure our communication crystals would work with us being this close to Savannah,” Derek asked Alanah, who was standing by, waiting for the Void Beast to appear. “I doubt Silvi will like the fact that I didn’t bring her out to do this with me.”

“I think it will be okay,” Alanah replied as she continued to look up at the sky where the energy had disappeared. “I only want to do this to satisfy my own curiosity and because I suddenly have a little extra time to spare since we skipped so many of those dungeons I had picked out for you…” she continued. “Besides, I only want a few of them—enough to see how your skill works and to see if we can get one of the better ones. After that, we can cross the sea and I can take care of a few… loose ends.”

“Okay…” Derek said. “But you have to tell Silvi that it was your idea if she asks. I would rather not spend my mornings eating burnt toast and scrambled eggs.” That was just about the only thing that Derek could cook, other than the usual steak and potatoes. He’d also become quite proficient in frying fish before the system came.

“Silvi would never ruin food just for revenge,” Alanah said.

“No,” Derek replied. “She definitely wouldn’t. But she would refuse to cook for me, and then cook extra just so she could eat it in front of me.”

“Oh…” Alanah touched her chin in thought. “Yeah, I could see her doing that.”

As Derek was about to speak again, his Void Sense caused him to turn his head to look into the sky. Sure enough, he saw a fluctuation of void energy leaking out. And soon after that, the telltale sign of a Void Beast appearing began. A pounding sound like that of a hammer beating on a hollow drum began sounding out from the sky.

“This is it?” Alanah asked—her eyes locked on the part of the sky where the pounding seemed to be coming from.

“Yup,” Derek answered. “It’s the typical appearance of a Void Beast,” he explained. “This is a pretty good-sized one, too.”“You can see it?”

“I can see the energy it’s emitting,” Derek replied. “It’s not the strongest that I’ve seen, but it should be just a bit less powerful than ones that are able to speak intelligently. Actually, there’s a possibility that it will be able to speak now that I think about it.”

“Exciting,” Alanah replied. “What now? Will it just break out? Will it make a Portal and come out?”

“How did it work with that skill? Portal?” Derek asked.

“There was no warning like this,” Alanah replied. “The beast would just somehow find its way to the tunnel that connected both sides of a portal, then it would come out of one of the exits.”

“I see,” Derek said.

“This looks like it is more like how they tend to escape when being chased by a being more powerful,” Alanah continued. “How it shatters the sky, then jumps inside—allowing the sky to heal behind it.”

“That’s exactly it,” Derek said. “Except… backwards. Watch, you’ll see.”

Alanah nodded, then fixed her gaze on the sky. The pounding sound became louder and louder until, finally, a small crack appeared.

Hmm… Derek thought. Looks like this one took about three minutes from the time that the Void Call energy disappeared to the first crack appearing. That seems about right.

“Fascinating,” Alanah muttered as the single crack formed into two, then the two into four, and so on until part of the sky looked like a giant spiderweb. Next, a piece of the sky fell. Particles flew off the piece like dust, and before it even reached halfway to the ground, it had completely disappeared. “There it is,” Alanah finally said.

Derek, who had been switching his gaze back and forth between the siren and the sky, turned all of his attention to the Void Beast—or rather, its razor-like clawed hand that reached out and grasped parts of the cracked sky. Just like all other beasts, the Void Beast began scraping and clawing and pulling the sky away until a hole big enough for its body appeared.

Once that happened, the Void Beast pulled itself one last time and launched its body from the void and into the world. Before the monster even hit the ground, the sky behind it already began the process of healing. Out of everything, Derek found that the most interesting. How does the sky just naturally heal itself like that? And why does it heal so much faster once the beast is out? But he couldn’t think about any of that for too long, as the beast had finally landed.

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It had been a very long time since the last time Derek summoned and fought against a Void Beast. If I’m remembering correctly, I haven’t actually fought one since my Void Sense hit level twenty. With that thought, Derek pushed the passive ability of his Void Sense to its limit and inspected the beast. Doing so caused Derek to unintentionally release some of his aura along with the skill.

Before, the beast was hissing as it focused on Derek and Alanah—presumably trying to figure out which of them would taste better. But after some of Derek’s energy leaked out along with his Void Sense, it was like the beast had completely forgotten about the half elf, and all of its attention was focused solely on Derek.

“Is it… scared?” Alanah asked from the side.

“I think so,” Derek replied. “Let me see something. I have never unleashed all my aura against a Void Beast—at least not since my total stat points were more than 9,000 total. Hell, now that I think about it, the last time I fought against any Void Beasts, I think my total stats were probably 6,000 or so. I’m hovering close to 10,000 right now.”

“Do it,” Alanah replied. It seemed like she was just as interested as Derek about what would happen if someone with void energy and a massive amount of stats unleashed his full aura on a Void Beast.

“Alright,” Derek replied. “You better prepare yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” Alanah said.

“Okay… here I go.” Derek took a deep breath in, then slowly began to unleash his aura. With that, the whites of Derek’s eyes turned a shade of deep purple—matching the normal color of his irises. The purple tint in his coal black hair completely took over as all traces of black were replaced with void purple. With his aura fully unleashed, his body actually felt heavier, but not in a physical way. Actually, he felt as if he could move faster than ever before if he wanted to, but he also instinctively knew that doing so would take a toll on his mind.

“Wow.” Derek heard Alanah mutter from the side. “I’ve never seen that before…”

Derek could barely hear the woman as he focused everything he had on controlling his aura and pointing it directly at the Void Beast in front. From the beginning, when he started to unleash his aura until now, he had been focused on the beast.

He was able to watch as multiple emotions appeared on the savage beast’s face throughout the process. At first, before Derek used even Void Sense, the beast looked rabid—like it wanted to kill anything and everything in sight. Then, when some of his aura leaked out with Void Sense, all of its focus was drawn to him, and it seemed like it wanted to do the same to him as the first intelligent Void Beast he fought did—it wanted to take him out before he got too powerful.

Then, when he began letting more and more of his aura seep out, he watched as the beast’s anger and ferociousness changed to caution and hesitation. But Derek’s aura continued to pour out and become stronger and stronger, which led the beast’s caution to be replaced by fear. Derek had never seen such a look of fear in a beast’s eyes before.

With that look of fear, the Void Beast no longer wanted to be there, and its body instinctively began to turn in an attempt to flee. Unfortunately for the Void Beast, Derek still wasn’t finished unleashing his aura at that time. No, he pushed it harder and unleashed more until he could no longer do so—until it actually became mentally draining to just direct it.

At that point, the beast was no longer scared, cautious, or mad… it looked… emotionless. The beast was now standing stock still, and the look in its eyes displayed absolutely no emotion. It was like it had accepted its fate that it was going to die, and now stood there, waiting for it to happen.

With the intelligent and aware Void Beasts, it seemed they were able to instinctively feel or see the void running through Derek, as, the last time he faced off against one, it instantly tried to run as soon as its feet hit the ground. However, it turned out that the Void Beast, now in front of him, hadn’t quite gathered such an amount of intelligence or awareness, and relied strictly on its emotions and instincts.

“I… think it’s catatonic,” Alanah said from the side, causing Derek to break out of his thoughts.

“That would seem to be the case,” Derek said. “Let’s see if it regains its vigor when I cancel my aura.” With those words, Derek withdrew his aura and even turned his Void Sense down a bit.

“Whew…” Alanah let out a breath from the side. “That was a bit more than I was expecting.”

“I told you to prepare yourself,” Derek replied with a smirk.

“More than I was expecting, but not near enough to really affect me,” Alanah said. “Even so, did you see your surroundings?”

“My surroundings?” Derek asked. “I was focused on the Void Beast the whole time.” He nodded at the beast, which had yet to regain the light in its eyes, and was still staring blankly at nothing.

“Mhm…” Alanah nodded her head in confirmation. “The surrounding space was distorted by your aura… Like… actually distorted. It even had a small amount of that dreadful feeling that your traveling skill has when you or Silvi use it.”

“Oh… really?” Derek asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.” Many different thoughts ran through his head. It seemed like every time his power increased, he was left with more and more questions about it. “If it’s like inside the portal created by Void Travel,” he started. “Then, what would happen if someone like… Thomas was around me when I went full out? Would the void hurt him physically like it does inside the tunnel?”

“I don’t know,” Alanah replied. “But I was standing this close to you, and I’m no worse for wear.” The half elf siren turned her hands and arms over and examined them. “Not missing any health points either,” she continued. “Maybe it’s just a visual thing? Or the beginnings of a natural evolution of your aura?”

“I don’t know,” Derek said. “But I’m going to have to be very careful with it from now on, and only use it when there are no allies around.”

“That would probably be for the best,” Alanah agreed.

“Now…” Derek raised his hand again and pointed at the near comatose Void Beast in front of him. The beast was still showing no signs of coming to. Am I the real void beast now? He wondered, but didn’t think too long about it. Instead, he shoved those thoughts aside and asked Alanah, “What are we going to do with that?”