Kaiser of the New World

Kai eagerly waited for the rest of the notifications to come in. He was extremely curious what he would gain from the fusion now, considering that he had manages to reach the new threshold.

Wolf of R??? mode activated.

Kai blinked.

It had revealed the first letter of whatever the word covered by question marks was?

A word beginning with R..?

Redemption? Rejuvenation? Revenge?

There was too many possibilities, and Kai wasn't too keen on spending the next few hours going through his head and saying words that began with R.

Plus, he had more important matters to attend to.

Like seeing what would happen when he fused with Umbra now.

+1000 Strength

+850 Constitution

+750 Stamina

+500 Dexterity

+100 Mana

Skill - Wolf's Senses (Common): Gained

Skill - Indomitable (Rare): Gained

Skill - Aura of the Chaos Beast (Legendary): Gained

Under the light snow of the never ending blizzard, Kai felt like doing a little dance.

All of those stats, all of those skills, all of them were just so... so...

Incredible!

3200 stats overall, which was the practically the same as Soul Inferno. And the fact he had Indomitable meant that if he wanted to, he could put the bare minimum amount of stats into Mana using Soul Inferno, that number being 518.

Then, he could put the rest of the stats gained from that skill into Strength, bringing the total of that stat up to 3256.

Then, he could double it using Indomitable, bringing it up to 6512.

And finally, he could double it again using Ignition, bringing his Strength up to a grand total of 13024.

Of course, it could go even higher if he Statshifted some extra stats into Strength, but he was fine with how his stats were currently allocated for now.

But Kai was still over the moon.

The things he had gained thus far were all tremendous boons, and they would only continue to show their worth the higher up the mountain they climbed.

Any beasts they encountered might even be terrified of him if they saw him.

Especially now, since he looked like a beast himself.

His height had risen to a staggering eight foot tall. His face had grown a snout, accompanied by a menacing set of razor sharp fangs.

His body was covered in pitch black fur, hints of purple decorating it at various different spots, making him look even more threatening than he already did.

Chrome Skin had reacted and created gaps at the top of its gauntlets for his new claws to slip through, each claw sharp enough to shred flesh without any effort.

Actually, looking closer, the upgrade to his transformation had gotten some boosts that the system hadn't mentioned.

His bloodflow had increased, his reaction time, his thinking speed, his mental clarity, even his senses, although that last part was because of a skill.

He could smell the snow surrounding him, but surprisingly he couldn't smell anything from inside the test. It really was good at masking their scents.

His body was even more durable than how it used to be whenever be transformed, and his claws were much sharper than previously.

It was like every aspect of him had been boosted, every fibre of his being had been enhanced during the upgraded fusion.

And the best part of it all, due to the fact Kai now possessed a skill that helped control his Mana and he had spent some time practicing circling it, he was able to stay in this form for just over 15 minutes.

How great.

But now it was time to get back on track, he had a new Legendary skill to look into.

Kai sighed softly to himself.

He himself had only just gotten a Legendary skill, and Umbra had practically gone and gotten herself another one.

Still, Soul Memorial was a pretty damn good skill, so he was curious to see what this new one would be capable of.

In past times, this skill once struck fear into any who witnessed it. Now, a diluted version has been passed down to a wolf who has digested some of the legendary wolf's blood. Using this skill, the user can coat themselves in an almost physical aura. When coated in this aura, all aspects of the user's body are enhanced. Any who the user deems an enemy will suffer from a stat penalty, while any they deem an ally with become renewed with vigour. The effect of the stat penalty is based on the strength of the user's soul in comparison to their opponent.

Kai looked up at the sky and grinned.

Everything was going so perfectly!

If he were just to ignore the fact that he had nearly gotten trampled by a titan, swarmed by a horde of goblins and nearly crushed by a massive snake, he almost would have believed that he was getting... lucky.

All of the things he had gained were just so incredible, so useful, and this skill was no different.

Boost aspects of his body? His flexibility, yep. His sturdiness, yep. His reaction speed, yep. His speed and endurance in general?  Honestly, maybe just that part would have been enough to warrant the Legendary rarity.

But no, the skill also went and lowered his opponents stats. By how much, he was still yet to find out, but still, the skill made him stronger and his foe weaker, who wouldn't want a skill like that.

However, Kai was still a little thrown off by the first part of the description. It once struck fear into any who witnessed it, and it's now a diluted version?

The skill was Legendary rarity, that was diluted? What goddamn wolf did the blood The Ever-changing gave Umbra belong to?

Ah who cared, all that mattered was that the skill was incredible and Kai was happy.

Undoing the fusion, Kai watched as Umbra slowly started to appear once more.

Softly patting her head, Kai grinned as Umbra pounced on him. Laughing to himself, he started running around as the large wolf chased him down. Not wanting to get pinned to the ground, he continued to run in circles to avoid his familiar.

And that was how Kai spent the next few minutes, playing with Umbra while under the never ending blizzard.

All the while unaware of Cecilia watching them through a small gap in the tent, a soft smile on her delicate face.

*****

After the group had woken up after getting a good night's sleep, they had a nice, healthy breakfast before setting out on their climb for the day.

It was somewhat monotonous. There was never anything new when it came to the climb, all there was was snow, the odd rock, and the monks footprints that never stopped.

Honestly, Kai was getting bored.

So to combat that boredom, he was always Statshifting and circulating his Mana.

It was lucky that neither of things things actually drained him of anything other than his mental state, meaning he could keep practicing over and over again as long as he got enough sleep.

He would also talk to Cecilia and Petunia. They would chat about various topics, from what life was like back on Earth to him and Petunia teaming up to mess with the ex-Queen.

Like, there was obviously no such thing as a TV show about a talking dog solving mysteries with a strange group of people, right?

... As if their current group was much better.

Hours passed as they continued to scale the body of the Royal Peak. Every step taken brought them one step closer to the peak, one step closer to freedom. There was still a long time before they would actually be able to reach the peak though.

Slowly but surely, they continued to climb. The blizzard hadn't changed too much at their current altitude, but Kai knew it would only get worse and worse the higher they got.

After climbing for roughly eight hours, and having taken some breaks at different points of that time, Kai decided they should set up camp for the night.

The inspiration for that idea mainly came from the fact that they actually ended up reaching a cave in the side of the mountain, offering them some shelter from the blizzard.

Smiling to himself, Kai lit his thumb up his flames and made his way into the cave.

It was pretty dark, but wasn't that bad. Somehow, it had a little bit of heat in it, which would be nice when they would try to go to sleep.

"Cecilia, you can set up here."

Nodding her head, Cecilia was just about to summon the tent from her spatial storage when-

Kai froze.

His eyes scanned the cave they were in, but there was nothing there, they were the only things. Sure it was dark, but that didn't add up to the uneasy feeling in his soul.

Kai frowned.

Why did he feel so worried all of a sudden? There was nothing to be worried about, nothing here.

Still, it didn't hurt to do one last check, so activating Soul Sense, Kai-

Felt his blood run cold.

Surrounding them in the cave were dozens and dozens of souls, each of them slowly getting closer to them.

And that wasn't even the worst part, the worst part was that the lowest level of the lot of them was...

Level 66