Free Web NovelChapter 16: Chapter 16: The locked door opened slightly at Midnight
After freshening up and finishing his snacks, Night sat cross-legged on the yellow bed, quietly contemplating his next move.
Lucy had slipped out of his shadow the moment he locked the door and was currently sitting gracefully by the window, watching the busy city streets below.
"You mentioned earlier that your only stat is EV," Lucy started, looking back at him.
"Yes," Night nodded. "But you said normal humans and beasts have other physical stats like Strength, Agility, and Vitality. If I am not wrong, my lack of normal stats has to do with my race."
"Even though the System didn’t explain much, the simple fact that my status screen is so sparse shows just how fundamentally different I am from a normal human being."
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "My theory is that the skills I gain through Devour will eventually make up for not having base physical stats."
"But I really need a way to generate more EV than I passively consume. The absolute best way is to devour, but that means I will need to frequently collect corpses."
Lucy’s golden eyes brightened with sudden excitement. "That is actually a great thing! Even though your stats don’t seem like a traditional fighting type on the surface, it is actually the exact opposite."
"Yours is a pure, limitless fighting class. The more you kill and devour, the stronger you become. We live in a brutal age where fighting and killing are entirely inevitable."
She wagged her tail slightly. "Night, if you properly take advantage of all the opportunities out there, becoming an absolute powerhouse is not impossible for you."
She suddenly jumped off the windowsill and trotted over to his lap. "Also, you have me! If you try that Nightmare Domain thing on me, maybe I will become your summon too and get even stronger!"
Night hesitated, looking down at his small hands. "I only used the Domain’s power on Eve, Lilith, and Death because I had absolutely no other choice back in the facility. It was either do that or leave them behind to be destroyed. But you are different. We are already bonded."
"But I am absolutely sure it will be good for us," Lucy urged, resting her heavy chin on his lap. "Just try it."
Night let out a long, tired sigh. "Alright then."
He knew arguing with her was pointless, especially since his new Beast Instinct was also tell him that it was a good idea.
The Beast Instinct was incredibly powerful for only being lvl. 1 skill, and it would be entirely logical to upgrade it right now. But because it was already so strong, Night was genuinely afraid of relying on it too much.
If a Level 1 instinct was this overwhelmingly strong, he didn’t even want to imagine how it would affect his mind at higher levels. He worried that he might truly turn into a beast that relied solely on instinct.
Shaking off his worries, he gently placed his right palm on Lucy.
The black fog immediately poured out of his hand, and his EV started dropping at a terrifyingly rapid pace.
It plummeted from 260 to 200, and then violently crashed down to 50.
Just as it hit a critical 10 EV, Night panicked and was about to forcefully break the connection, but the assimilation process suddenly completed itself.
Lucy vanished into thin air and instantly reappeared safely inside his Soul Space.
And then, something completely unexpected happened.
Ding!
[Unique Skill ’Devour’ and Unique Skill ’Bond’ have been successfully absorbed by Unique Skill ’Nightmare Domain’.]
Ding!
[Nightmare Domain Updated.]
[Devour: The Nightmare Domain can directly devour a target to extract records and make them a permanent part of the Domain.]
[Bond: Allows the summons to freely use Night’s skills, and allows Night to use the skills and physical attributes of his summons. Skill effectiveness depends heavily on the synchronicity between Night and the specific summon.
Lucy - 20%
Death - 5%
Eve -1%
Lilith - 1%]
The moment the skills merged, Night physically felt the profound change. He felt himself becoming at least ten times stronger.
Excited by the sudden rush of power, he jumped off the bed and immediately dropped to the floor to test his limits. He managed to do exactly ten push-ups before his tiny arms gave out completely and he fell flat on his face, panting heavily.
A dark portal quietly opened beside him, and Lucy stepped out. Thick wisps of black fog could be seen curling off her dark scales, clearly indicating that she had also become significantly stronger from the domain’s refinement.
Night lifted his tired head off the yellow carpet and looked at his status screen. I am poor again.
[Energy Value (EV): 9.0]
Guessing what he was worried about "Don’t worry, we will recover it easily the moment a fight occurs," Lucy said reassuringly as she nudged his shoulder. "In my past life, I had a very similar skill that allowed me to directly turn my food into pure magical energy. That shared trait is probably what just made your Devour process so much more efficient."
Night sat up suddenly, his blue eyes widening as if he had just achieved true enlightenment. "Wait! We don’t necessarily have to kill monsters to get energy! Even normal human food should have the exact same regenerative effect, right?"
Lucy immediately argued back. "But eating the meat raw will ensure we get all the proper nutrients. Cooking meat kills ninety percent of the essential energy! It is highly ineffective and a massive waste of precious resources."
Night just stared at her with a completely blank expression.
"Where did that even come from?" Night asked, utterly stumped by her passionate culinary defense. "I was just talking about how we can temporarily survive on regular hotel food to slowly regenerate EV instead of hunting."
Lucy realized she had just aggressively defended eating raw monster meat, embarrassed chose to stay silent.
Night looked at her weirdly. She is totally a glutton; who likes her food raw.
He checked his physical condition again and was genuinely surprised to feel his heart rate and breathing already calming down after his ’intense’ ten-push-up exercise session.
He clenched his small fist, feeling a warm burst of pride at his own progress.
I have become more than ten times stronger in a single day. It was literally only yesterday that I escaped that terrible white facility.
The doorbell chimed right at 7 PM.
He ran to the door and pulled it open, only to see the exact same masked waiter standing outside with a new silver trolley.
This time, the silent man stepped smoothly into the room, expertly swapped the fresh dinner trolley with the old snack cart, and turned to leave.
Night politely thanked him for the meal, but he was completely ignored once again as the door clicked shut.
-_-
After eating his dinner with lucy. He spent the rest of the time chatting with her. They talked about trivial things, like all the strange, beautiful environments she had seen while touring the apocalyptic world.
In return, Night shared a few fragmented, hazy memories from his past life on Earth, or at least whatever small pieces he could actually remember.
Around 9 PM, he checked his status.
[Energy Value (EV): 10.0]
Consuming normal human food definitely helped regenerate his reserves. Even though the energy conversion from food was many times slower than deep meditation or devouring a corpse, it firmly proved his theory that eating worked as a passive EV recharger. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
He meditated for a few more hours to steady his mind. Around 11 PM, he finally climbed under the yellow hotel covers and tried to sleep, but he felt incredibly restless. His newly upgraded Beast Instincts were acting up.
So, he simply did what any normal seven-year-old kid would do in a scary new environment.
He grabbed Lucy ruthlessly used the apex predator as a fluffy teddy bear. Her weak fake growls of protest couldn’t deter him in the slightest as he buried his face in her dark soft scales and finally drifted off to sleep.
× - × - ×
Creeeeak.
Around midnight,
The door open slightly dispite being previously locked...
