Kaiser of the New World

Kai remained completely still as dozens of souls slowly started creeping closer and closer to him.

The souls were a horrible shade of purple, like a corpse that had been frozen over. Unlike the souls of the abomimations back in the Forest of Ethania, these souls did not have ugly veins covering their bodies, but they still managed to look just as putrid.

Kai swallowed nervously.

"You know what, why don't you all step outside the cave for a moment?"

Cecilia frowned. She glanced back at Kai and was just about to say something when she suddenly stopped herself.

Why was his hand twitching like that?

Like he was... worried?

Suddenly, she heard a voice speak inside her head.

Only this time, it wasn't her own voice.

"There's invisible creatures in here. Get out now."

Flinching slightly, Cecilia reacted quickly and softly grabbed Petunia's hand, pulling her out of the cave.

"Come on Petunia, let's have a look at the view outside."

Petunia wore a confused expression on her face but did not fight back, letting herself be pulled away by the worried Cecilia.

Once they had left the cave, and only then, did Kai move.

Instantly, his body was engulfed by flames that could almost be described as divine. Their colour was a bright green, like a forest.

Kai's ears were assaulted by countless shrieks, disorienting him as all of the souls suddenly charged at him, wanting to end his life then and there.

But by the time they could react, the damage had already been done.

Kai outstretched both of his hands, and from each of his palms, a wave of fire shot out. It lit up the entire cave, revealing the shadows of humanoid creatures as the fire flew towards them.

Their bodies were incredibly elongated, and their limbs stretched out more than should have been possible.

The fire reached the first of them, completely encasing them as it started to thrash and scream even louder. By now, Kai was struggling to resist the urge to lift his hands up to cover his ears.

One by one, each of the invisible creatures got covered in the green flames, each of them adding to the barrage of sound attacking Kai's ears.

Sadly, even after the upgrade from a Divine rarity item, the flames were not enough to kill any of the invisible creatures.

After looking inside their souls, Kai focused on the Stat Sparks inside it.

They were roughly the same for every creature. The largest sparks were red and green, meaning the creatures highest stats were Strength and Constitution, meaning they were all going to get up close and personal when attacking him.

And that was exactly what happened.

The first of the beasts, still covered in the flames, swiped it's lanky arm at Kai, a set of razor sharp claws at the end of it.

That was one of the main reasons he had decided to use Constitution as the main stat when attacking the beasts, it had the longest life span after all, meaning he would be able to see the beasts a little longer.

Esurient manifested into Kai's hand at the same time he fused with Umbra. His height, size and stats all suddenly soared.

Now, it was a large Lycan facing off against dozens of invisible monsters.

...

Not much better, but it was still an improvement.

After stopping the stream of flames from his hands, Kai quickly manipulated Soul Inferno into putting all of its bonus stats into his Strength. Then, he activated Indomitable.

Kai's Strength doubled, filling him with newfound power, while his Dexterity took a heavy hit.

But Dexterity didn't matter in this situation, there wasn't much room to dodge and maneuver anyway.

Kai let go of Esurient, letting the Ruby blade fly freely so it could attack any beast that attempted to attack him from the back. Even though Kai's back was to the cave entrance and he currently didn't have to worry about anyone attacking him from there, he wasn't sure how long he could keep up his current position.

Letting go of Esuriant also meant that he would be able to take advantage of the main weapon of this form.

His claws.

Kai snarled as he ducked under the invisible creature's arm. Even with its long lifespan, the Constitution flames were already slowly starting to die out, meaning he had to take out as many of them as possible before that happened.

Of course, he could just try and make use of that strange ability his soul possessed, being able to peer a second into the future, that way he could see how he was going to be attacked and counter.

Only that ability worked better in one on one fights, not one against dozens. The last time he tried to make use of it against multiple opponents was back in the Dome when trying to reach Failure, and even then he hadn't fought anything, he had only used it to dodge, and even then he still got hit multiple times because his brain just couldn't handle all the strain.

So Kai had to hold back from doing that, not unless it was absolutely necessary.

Swiping his sharp claws at where the beast's chest was, Kai felt them tear into its flesh as streams of red shot outwards, coating his fur.

The next moment, his second claw came in and pierced the creature's chest, stabbing it straight through its soul.

Then, the melodic voice of the system spoke in his mind.

You have slain Forgotten Husk.

Kai grinned darkly.

Sadly, that was the last time he would grin, as the next moment he was overrun by the tide of invisible creatures.

Luckily, the flames coating his body seemed to deter them a little, but they still seemed hell bent on killing him. They almost had no regard for their own safety.

Kai slashed and slasher, tearing at bits of flesh and even hitting against things that felt like bones.

More and more blood shot out, coating his fur, making him look like a beast that had just crawled out of the deepest depths of hell.

The figure of a lanky flaming beast lunged at Kai, throwing itself at him from his left, meanwhile another one attacked him head on, and a third attacked him from the right.

Kai growled as he instantly sprung into action.

Realising that he couldn't afford to get overwhelmed, he activated Ignition.

Only this time, he used it very differently. He knew what the skill was capable of after all.

This time, he only used the skill on his Strength, and even then he only multiplied it by 1.5×.

Feeling his body surge with even more power, Kai activated the final skill in his roster that could help him.

Aura of the Chaos Beast

Somehow, it was like the already cold temperature had dropped a few degrees.

The red flames surrounding Kai got even darker, even more terrifying, more primal.

Kai felt his body become stronger. His muscles clenched, his claws got even sharper, his centre of gravity somehow improving at the same time, along with a variety of other things about him that he didn't think would get upgraded.

His eyesight, hearing, balance, thinking, calmness, it was almost like he was a different person.

It kind of felt like when he was back in the Tutorial, when Failure possessed him.

And to Kai's surprise, that idea wasn't actually far fetched.

Inside the flames, two eyes shimmered into existence. They were sharp and predatory, like they were looking down on everyone other than itself.

Instantly, the invisible creatures faltered, like they had suddenly been weakened.

Kai did not let that fraction of a second go.

He had learned that these beasts had an anatomy that somewhat looked like a regular humans, so that meant he could attack them with means that would most definitely incapacitate a regular human.

The creature on his left had its throat violently ripped apart by a set of claws, the one in front of him fell to the ground after having both of its lanky legs sliced off, and the one on his right didn't even get the change to fight back after a spinning, invisible blade cleanly decapitated it.

You have slain...

You have slain...

You have slain...

Kai grinned madly, his eyes burning with a strange intensity. It was nice feeling like this, feeling like he was strong.

The next moment, Kai felt the back of his mind tingle strangely, a feeling he hadn't in a while.

A mind attack.

Only he knew that the mind attack wasn't actually coming from the invisible monsters, but from him himself. The aura that he was empowering himself with was trying to manipulate emotions, so it was a good thing that he had a skill that resisted that.

The eyes above him seemed to shift a little, upset.

That was the last stray thought Kai was able to have as the next moment, the rest of the invisible beasts descended upon him, giving him no more time to think about anything other than survival.

*Author Note*

Sorry people, but between school, work and a variety of other things I just can't keep up with a daily chapter schedule. I've had it going since the beginning of Easter, and I lasted much longer than I expected, but my stockpile of chapters is dwindling because I can't write one a day.

So, I'm going to leave a poll at the end of this chapter of what you'd like the new schedule to be. There will be a new chapter tomorrow regardless, and Monday will be the beginning of the new schedule so 5pm gmt is the deadline.

Sorry in advance,

Kerplunkered.