Kaiser of the New World

Groaning as he stood up, Kai cast a glance back at the cave and saw... nothing.

Unlike the Veiled of the Dark Side, which had turned visible after its death, these beasts did not lose their invisibility after dying, they were still as hard to spot as they were before.

However, Kai could smell the bodies of them, each of them burning and smelling like a barbecue straight from hell.

Hissing in pain, Kai undone his fusion, letting his stats return to normal and the feeling of pain return as well.

His body wasn't that injured, just a little sore considering that he had been healing himself using Minor Restoration for a bit.

No, most of the pain was coming from his soul.

Kai inwardly cursed himself.

He had only just repaired his soul, yet he had already gone and injured it again. Plus, his Strength would be lowered for a while considering that he had to make use of Ignition during that fight.

So, while cursing himself, Kai had a look at the consequences of his actions.

Using Soul Sense, Kai braced himself and attempted to assess the damages.

Surprisingly, his soul wasn't actually in that bad of a condition. Sure there was a heap of cracks decorating it's body after forcing it to be used as a supercharger to blow himself up, but the cracks themselves weren't actually that bad. It would still take Kai a few hours to repair them though.

And the drawback of using Ignition wasn't bad either, it was just that his Strength was lowered a little for three hours, which wasn't long at all.

Of course, the only reason these drawbacks weren't detrimental was because of how low down the mountain they were. Kai had no doubt that the higher up they rose, the more harmful it would be to be weakened for any amount of time.

By now, Kai's suspicion about the mountain was more or less confirmed.

It acted like a tower game. The higher up he climbed, the harder it would get, the stronger the enemies would become, the more hazardous the environment would become. There would also be boss battles, like the one against the snake back in the underground chappel, which would challenge him even more, but for now they were relatively safe.

Kai shuddered to himself.

Never did he think that having to act as a bomb to kill a bunch of invisible monsters would be relatively safe, yet here he was.

Somehow still alive.

And better yet, while the mountain would get more dangerous and more treacherous to climb, Kai would be getting stronger.

And it was time to reap the boons of what he got for killing all of those beasts.

Level 62 reached

A whole six levels gained for killing a bunch of beasts that were a higher level than him. It didn't really seem like a lot in theory, but Kai had a feeling that, like items, XP was somehow affected by how hard a fight was.

Even though that was kind of dumb if it was true, it was still just a theory that was in his mind.

Skill selection obtained

Kai grinned slightly.

Another skill selection. He'd already had five since leaving the city, meaning this would be his sixth one.

He was gaining items, levels and fighting experience at a rapid pace. It was a good thing, but Kai felt that his pace was probably going to be forced to slow down a little soon.

But after deciding on something, Kai decided to have a look at the rest of the notifications before choosing his new skill.

He got two items for killing all of those beasts, and to his surprise, they were two different items.

One was a pale cloak that had the ability to partially mask someone's presence and make them less likely to be noticed, the other was a pair of strange slippers that near nullified the sounds of footsteps.

Both of them had there uses, but Kai wasn't in need of them, so he would temporarily loan the cloak and slippers to Petunia. Like all the other items he had given them, he was going to take them back when they reached the peak, but they might as well make use of them while they tried to scale the damned mountain.

So, with a sigh, Kai turned around and began making his way out of the cave. He at least wanted to be in the tent before making his skill selection, so he had to go find-

Kai yelped as he tripped over nothing, ending up falling onto the ground below.

Groaning, Kai reached out and-

Would you like to use Soul Memorial?

Yes/No

Oh, right, he could use this skill.

He accidently tripped over one of the invisible corpses and coincidently ended up touching another one of them.

Actually, now that he was able to get a proper feel of the bodies and not the feeling of ripping them to shreds, Kai felt even more uncomfortable.

The bodies of the monsters faintly reminded Kai of sandpaper, or something really coarse like that, it was uncomfortable to touch.

And Kai wasn't even sure what part of the body he was currently touching.

Still, he may as well fight the thing. Considering that he had been able to beat dozens of them, he surely had to be able to defeat a single one, right?

Plus, he was also curious what the rewards would be like.

So, deciding to do an experiment in the process, Kai picked up a small pebble and threw it into the air. Just as it reached the peak of its ascent, he used the skill.

The next thing he knew, he was back inside the shadow realm that the skill brought him too.

Complete darkness, accompanied by complete darkness, it would be enough to make anyone feel at home.

... Not.

Looking around the vast, colourless expanse, Kai couldn't help but notice that he was all by himself here.

Well, not really, it's just that the beast was already invisible.

Using Soul Sense, Kai-

"Ooh..."

Was greeted by a strange sight.

Every soul he had seen so far had some sort of colour to it. Be it a mice, vibrant colour or the sickening and horrendous colours of the abominations and these invisible beasts, they all had some sort of shade.

But in this shadow realm, even the souls were completely black, shadow versions of the original that had been dipped in liquid nightmares.

And yet, it was a strangely captivating sight. A soul was already a beautiful thing, but a soul made of shadows was another type of beautiful.

Kai almost felt sorry that he would be killing this thing in a few moments.

Fight the Forgotten Husk

Rewards of Soul Memorial will be based on how well you perform.

Letting out a soft sigh, Kai equipped and activated all of his boosting skills, raising his stats by a ton.

There was no need to fuse with Umbra, he was certain that he would be able to kill this thing without much effort.

Esurient manifested into reality a moment later. Kai coated the blade with his flames and then turned the blade invisible.

Luckily, the flames turned invisible along with it, it just took a little more Mana to keep up.

After that, Kai took a step forward.

And at the same time, the invisible creature started moving, its soul rapidly approaching him.

Lifting up the invisible sword in his hand, Kai pointed it blankly at the beast and-

A second later, a multi-coloured beam of light shot out of it, piercing through the invisible abominations chest and shattering its soul before it even had the chance to react.

Kai watched in awe as its soul slowly started to disintegrate, black dust softly spilling onto the dark ground below.

Suddenly, the shadow arena trembled, which didn't happen last time, considering that Kai himself had been the one to die.

A strange feeling ran through Kai's body, in fact, he could almost describe the feeling as familiar, like someone he knew was watching him.

Turning around, Kai saw-

A pebble in the air. The small rock then began to fall before eventually landing on the ground a second later.

Kai sighed.

At least now he knew that time actually either paused or his mind worked strangely after using the skill, considering that the pebble had been in the same place in the when Kai activated the skill and after the skill had ended.

Then, the notification came in.

You have gained...

+12 Strength and +7 Constitution

Kai blinked.

Was that seriously all he got?

Sure the fight hadn't exactly been hard, and sure the beast hadn't exactly been strong, but only getting 19 stats for it?

Actually, what were the requirements to get a skill from killing a shadow in Soul Memorial? Maybe if he had been able to kill the Winter Seprent then he could have gotten one.

But a few stats, that didn't really-

Suddenly, Kai froze, a sly grin growing on his face as he performed a small spin while looking at the ground.

With how many corpses there were, maybe the stats he was getting would be worthwhile if he used Soul Memorial on all of them.

*Author Note*

Alright, new schedule is Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, meaning no new chapter tomorrow. Sorry.