Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The Hybrid Luman loomed over his victim, [Evil Darkness] leaking from his hands as it invaded without limitation.

His eyes that were full of the darkness as well because of the partial activation of [Crude World Projection] which he had mastered during the heat of the battle with Bassbion, saw the full image of Trevis but with a darkness tainting his outline.

A splash of grey and a small cloud of white could be seen over him as well, the Hybrid Luman who now had an understanding of what all these colours meant and how to take advantage of their meaning in each individual, rejoicing at having found another catch.

"Let's see what a sockethole like you can teach me," he said as he activated a Special skill which he had for a long time but had been unable to use because of the insufficiency of his core.

[Basic Evil Sanction!]

The darkness that leaked from Skullius' hand latched onto the darkness which he saw in his vision!

At the same time, the stream of his darkness which touched the spots of grey and white on Trevis instantly dissipated as if it didn't exist!

Through the darkness that cradled that within the bandit, Skullius felt sounds and experienced images that he had never experienced before.

They were all distorted.

It was like watching a scene from a far away distance with the sounds of what was occurring being obscured and the images themselves warped by darkness, giving representations more than real details.

No mental image could clearly be built for Skullius, but it wasn't about all that.

It was about what the darkness he expelled was able to explore from the darkness from his target.

Each action and its intent.

Be it what his victim learned, or was subjected to.

Murder.

Anguish.

Sick glee.

Determination for an unjust cause.

[Evil Darkness] pulled on everything it could, drawing away the darkness from Trevis.

Devouring it.

Soon, Skullius lost touch with this sensation that felt like he had just devoured someone whole, absorbing everything to do with what was considered the 'evil' within them.

The darkness flaring in Skullius' eyes died down as once more, he was left optically blind.

"As I thought, he didn't have much to offer," Skullius said. "At least I gained some insights about the sword. They should help me a bit with [Basic Sword Mastery]."

The Hybrid Luman looked at Trevis' body while rising to stand up straight.

The man was still alive but when he woke up, he would be... lost.

In a way, he would be left as a saint, as the darkness within him, the majority of his being was stripped away.

But he also wouldn't be himself anymore.

This skill, [Basic Evil Sanction], a skill which he had gotten at the same time as [Basic Evil Weaving] and [Basic Evil Invasion], was quite powerful.

Its effects when not as powerful as they should be yet but it was definitely very useful.

~~~

[Basic Evil Sanction (Special) | Lv.1]

Using the inherent darkness within, grab ahold of all material and representational darkness, pulling out what it hides and everything attached to it within yourself.

The stronger the skill grows, the more concepts can be drawn and shaped as the user wills.

Mana Requirements: ---

Duration: ---

Cooldown: ---

~~~

This skill was the reason why Skullius could now speak well enough in the Known Language and in several dialects of this region.

The description of the skill could be interpreted in many different ways, but once Skullius used the skill itself, he grew to understand it more.

As for how he come to learn so much in a short amount of time, it was because...

There were so many goddamn hooligans in this region!

He had come across three separate groups of thieves and bandits in the past eight hours, which grew irritating.

After having received the WILL OF UNDERSTANDING back in the Temple of Unlusted Tears, Skullius had intended to test out all his darkness and light skills which led him to stumble upon this Special skill he had never used.

In activating it, he had discovered that it was more effective on scumbags.

People who were identified as evil or bad, a concept which Skullius could fairly understand but was yet to fully comprehend.

The more darkness within a target he could see with [Crude World Projection] vision, the more effective it was. Now, this discoloured sight of his had more meaning.

Alternatively, if an individual was considered good or even splattered with grey, the skill would be more or less useless. Again, at the basic level, Skullius understood what good, meant.

This wasn't [Basic Evil Sanction]'s main use however, as [Basic Evil Invasion] could accomplish something somewhat similar on this aspect, but Skullius didn't use that skill often for obvious reasons.

Speaking of these reasons, Skullius has discovered something else phenomenally more profound than much else he had unlocked with his awakening.

He didn't know if it was the Luminant Seed's doing or if it was because of Sause's interference but... his soul, had been partially repaired!

From the 52% that was read through Doom Factor 2 because of how fractured his soul was, the figure had gone down to 35%, clearly depicting that Skullius' soul wasn't as tattered anymore!

With that, Doom Factor 2's descent was delayed by nearly 4 months according to the guidance field which caused Skullius much elation!

Naturally, as was the guidance field's habit, he didn't get a notification for this, unlike with a rapid progression to his Doom and he had to look into it because of how... different he felt post awakening.

What a good life it was...

If this was Sause's doing, it definitely felt like he was being fattened up before being devoured though.

But who cared?!

For now, it was a heavy boon!

"It would be too cruel to allow you to continue existing, wouldn't it bro?" Skullius asked solemnly as he gazed hollowly over Trevis' body.

His mana softly flared from his body, moving under his impeccable control to cover the bandit.

Then...

BOOOOM!

As if a massive boulder had fallen from the sky at breakneck speed, Trevis' body was squashed into nothing more than a spot of ground blood, the crust beneath it digging wildly into itself!

The unique property of Skullius' mana was on display.

Weight manipulation.

[You have killed LV13 Human. 15 EXP awarded]

'Yea, killing these guys doesn't give me much. Well, at least I no longer have to look at the large number of experience required for each level. This will definitely be useful for my Penetrator form,' Skullius thought with a sigh.

A perk of getting a new coloured, especially when transitioning from white to blue, was the expanded range of where cumulative mana experience was drawn from.

Unlike with how the white core functioned, blue cores and above could extract mana from not only body of the victim but the soul as well!

This discovery had answered some of Skullius' questions when pertaining to why the core anchored itself to the body and soul.

Both took mana from the core but the difference was in the quality!

The soul was also nourished by mana!

Additionally, the required experience was compounded into smaller but more meaningful figures, like a reset of sorts, this being helpful to Skullius who could see visual depictions of his stats.

"Master! Master! Where are you?!" a voice called from the distance.

A throbbing vein popped on Skullius' temple.

It was Yuyui.

Just now, as they were walking towards their destination, she had suddenly started begging for food, bleeding tears from her eyes as her stomach growled like an animal.

Skullius had been seriously pissed off.

This sockethole had watched as his food supply ended to her bottomless pit of a mouth, worse yet when he had just discovered that he now had the ability to taste!

Indeed. Finally!

He could taste instead of considering every food the same, yet the guidance field didn't tell him of this too, as with many small details!

Unfortunately, Skullius couldn't explore this some more as the food he had was cleared out by the pain in the pelvis he was travelling with!

Yet Yuyui kept begging!

In a fit of rage, Skullius had killed her to shut her up and now she had revived to become a bigger yap in his ear.

"Is this servant thing supposed to an eternal thing or just temporary? If she keeps this up, I'll probably have to research on ways to kill her permanently. Those two ought to be of some help if I probe hard enough, right?,' Skullius thought half-jokingly as he walked up to meet Yuyui.