CHAPTER 52: STRANGER BEING.

As he walked down the side of the gently flowing dark river, Nero decided to test out his skill, Shadow Shift.

According to the Oracle; a skill is a strange and unique manifestation of a Seal of Sin.

What he understood from that, revealed to him he knew close to nothing about the powers he was dealing with.

’According to the Oracle, the Seals of Sin are pathways. Skills on the other hand, are unique manifestations of said pathways. However, what causes this manifestation?’

Was it Ein Sof? Perhaps. That seemed like the more reasonable explanation.

However, Nero was not stupid enough to believe that just energy would be enough to produce such a change. There had to be something else at play.

And from all he had learned so far, he could make certain educated guesses.

’But first...’

He sucked in a deep breath and tried envisioning how to manifest the execution of this skill.

He recalled watching the Shadow Stalker in action.

The Abomination had been incredibly swift.

In fact, he believed the outcome of that battle would have been much more different if the creature had been focused on killing him right from the start.

Instead, it had chosen to play with him viciously. And while that had been far worse than a straight death, it had fortunately, allowed him to kind a way out of a terrible predicament.

A few moments later, something clicked in him.

For some reason, Nero found he could sense the shadows much better than he had originally expected. It was nearly overwhelming, forcing him to stop for a moment and take a breather.

His eyes opened and a layer of sweat formed on his forehead.

"That... was dangerous."

For a moment, he had nearly been lost in the shadows.

The details of the skill stated that his affinity with the shadows had been greatly increased. However, he didn’t realize what that meant until he tried envisioning it.

The sensation had been greatly similar to falling. Only in this case, it felt like he was about to fall into the shadows.

The ravine was quite dark, and from the glow of some strange mushrooms growing on the walls and vines, numerous shadows were cast.

Because of this, the sensations seemed quite unreal too.

But that was not all.

The moment he successfully envisioned, his body felt extremely light, almost like he was about to float away.

Not only that, but his senses felt sharper.

’So this is what the feeling is like.’

When it traveled through the shadows the Shadow Stalker was noiseless and almost undetectable.

’Perhaps...’

Nero shook his head. Compared to the real Seal of Sin, the version his skill was derived from was certainly weaker than that of the Stalker. After all, the Abomination had been able to spew forth shadows from its being, stalking and pouncing in their prey through that.

He closed his eyes again.

The more he tried to envision, the more he realized that the feeling of activating the Shadow Shift, the more it felt archaic and bestial in nature.

Since the Seals could be considered pathways, then the Shadow Shift was the Stalker’s personalized pathway.

’A pathway might very well, be understanding. Perhaps, the Stalker gained enlightenment from having to make use of the concealment of the shadows to hunt its prey, eventually leading to the development of the sin which in turn led to the creation of Shadow Shift.’

It made sense a bit. No. It made a lot of sense. Thinking about it a bit, Nero suddenly couldn’t help his thoughts from spiraling a bit.

’The same can be said for the rest of the Seals the Church makes use of. Only, instead of we humans cultivating them ourselves, they were granted onto us by the Gryghori themselves. In other words, the Seals of Sin the Church use, are specific pathways of the Angels.’

He froze for a moment,

’Pathway of the Angels. Then, is my Divine Seal perhaps, a pathway to becoming an Angel as well?’

He huffed and shook his head,

’Come on. Get your head in order. No use overthinking things.’

Of course, all of this was mostly his deduction and speculation. The reality could probably be much different from what he reasoned.

He continued walking down the path for a few hours when he suddenly stumbled across a shallow creek.

His body froze as he instantly went on high alert.

There was something crouched over, lapping water from the stream. Its form was slightly obscured by the darkness, but Nero could tell it was a living creature.

A pair of green eyes shot up and glared right into his soul.

With a shrill ring, the Silver Blade was unsheathed.

The creature let out a hiss as its killing intent blossomed.

’A humanoid Abomination.’ he made a swift observation.

It looked frighteningly similar to the Hollow Wretches and the Corrupted Scavengers.

However for some reason, it seemed much for frightening and twisted.

Its dark skin was like bark fivered by terrible sores and tumors.

It was quite large, about as large as he was even whilst crouched.

Its glowing green eyes were rather large. As it growled, its lips flapped open to reveal a wide maw that stretched out in four directions to reveal sharp curved fangs onthe internal pink flesh.

It was, by definition, a terrifying being. Much stranger than the other Humanoid Abominations. Even worse, it looked many times stronger.

Nero took a stance and readied his blade.

The Abomination let out a low growl as the viscous black water dripped down its chin.

It took two steps forward, still crouching.

Then it froze.

A bead of sweat rolled down Nero’s face, down to his chin.

His heart thumping in his chest was the rhythm of the macabre music.

Silence.

And then an explosion.

Moist dirt and rocks were kicked up as the Abomination charged forward.

Wisps of darkness moved around Nero’s body as he envisioned the skill— Shadow Shift.

The energy within him ignited like a sun as the darkness around him deepened.

It a stunning burst of speed, he vanished.