CHAPTER 41: THE SOUL REAPER’S BARGAIN

Edward stared at the system’s offer. The words glowed with a cold, final authority.

Permanently sever. Irreversible. The language was not that of a simple upgrade. It was the language of a fundamental, soul-altering transformation. A bargain. A pact. A one-way door into a deeper, more profound darkness.

He looked at the word "holy." He thought of the burning, searing pain of the Templars’ chains. The agony from Valerius’s blessed silver sword.

The "divine" systems of his world had only ever brought him judgment and suffering. They were the weapons of his enemies. The tools of a corrupt, hypocritical order that had branded him a heretic.

To sever his connection to that world, to that power, was not a sacrifice. It was a liberation.

A declaration of independence. A final, defiant severing of the last thread that bound him to the society that had cast him out.

His hesitation was not born of fear. But of a cold, pragmatic calculation. The Inquisition was now his sworn enemy.

To choose this path would be to make himself exquisitely vulnerable to their primary weapon.

A tactical risk of the highest order.

But the alternative was stagnation. To remain as he was, a half-formed monster, was to remain vulnerable in a different way. He was a king in the shadows now. The leader of a nascent, outcast faction.

He needed more power. Not just for himself. But for the fierce, loyal wolf-girl who now slept by his hearth. For the deadly, cynical assassin who had just gambled her faction’s future on his potential. He needed the power to protect his new, dysfunctional family. And power, in his world, always came at a price.

He looked at the glowing [Y/N]. His choice was already made. He had been walking this path since the moment he plunged his hand into the dying goblin’s chest. This was not a deviation. It was a destination.

Yes. The thought was a firm, unwavering command.

The moment he accepted, the world went cold. Not the biting, external cold of the Sunken Crypt. A deep, internal chill that started in the core of his soul and spread outwards. It felt like a part of him, a faint, vestigial warmth he hadn’t known was there, was being surgically excised.

A wave of cold, shadow-like energy washed over him. So black it seemed to absorb the light. Not a violent, painful transformation. A quiet, profound, and utterly absolute one. He felt a shift in his own being. A re-writing of his spiritual DNA. He was no longer a human cursed with a monstrous power. He was a new, singular entity. A being whose very essence was a fusion of man and shadow.

His Vision flickered. The old text dissolved. Replaced by a new, sharper, more menacing script.

[Edward Ross]

Title: Anomaly

Class: [Soul Reaper]

Level: 10

HP: 250/250

MP: 185/185

SP: 101,505

[Stats]

STR: 24

VIT: 23

DEX: 29

INT: 23

WIS: 24

LCK: ?

SPD: 28

[New Passive Skill Acquired: Soul Gaze]

Description: As a Soul Reaper, you are attuned to the flow of spiritual energy. You can now perceive the relative strength, health, and spiritual weaknesses of your enemies.

He felt the change immediately.

He looked at Fenris. Still sleeping peacefully by the fire. Before, he had seen a powerful, beast-kin warrior. Now, with a subtle shift in his focus, his vision changed. He saw a faint, golden aura surrounding her. A vibrant, powerful life force that burned with the fierce, unwavering loyalty of a wolf.

He could see the intricate web of her spiritual energy. The strong, steady pulse of her untainted soul. A new sense. A new layer of perception. Both beautiful and terrifyingly invasive.

He looked at his own hands. Before, just flesh and bone. Now, with Soul Gaze active, he could see the dark, swirling 20% corruption within himself. A chaotic, hungry vortex that pulsed with his own heartbeat. He was not just stained by darkness. He was intertwined with it.

He needed to test this new form. To understand its limits. The Ashen Market was his home. His sanctuary. He couldn’t risk a display of power here. He needed a hunting ground.

He left Fenris sleeping. He slipped out of his safe house. He made his way to a secluded corner of the market. A low-level, stable dungeon portal shimmered. A D-Rank zone. The "Whispering Tunnels." A convenient training ground.

He stepped through. Plunged into a labyrinth of tight, claustrophobic tunnels. The air was thick with dust. The faint, chittering sounds of unseen creatures.

He moved with a new, unnatural grace. His footsteps, silent before, were now utterly nonexistent. He flowed through the tunnels like a plume of smoke. His body felt lighter. More attuned to the shadows that were now a part of his very being.

He encountered his first target. A Tunnel Scuttler. A large, beetle-like creature with a thick, chitinous shell. Before, he would have assessed it based on size and strength. Now, his Soul Gaze gave him a complete tactical breakdown.

He saw the creature’s life force. A dull, muddy brown aura. He saw the lines of its spiritual energy. And he saw the single, glaringly bright point of weakness. A nexus of that energy just beneath the carapace on its back.

He didn’t bother with stealth. He simply walked towards it. The Scuttler let out a hostile chitter and charged.

Edward didn’t dodge. At the last second, he took a single, precise side-step. The creature’s clumsy charge carried it past him. As it passed, his hand, holding the Shadowfang Dagger, shot out. A blur.

An afterthought. The black blade struck the exact point of spiritual weakness his Soul Gaze had revealed.

The dagger slid through the thick, armored carapace as if it were wet paper. The Scuttler froze mid-stride. Its hostile chittering cut off abruptly. It simply collapsed. Its life force extinguished in an instant.

A perfect, effortless, one-hit kill.

He placed his hand on the creature’s shell to begin the assimilation. And that was when he saw it.

With his Soul Gaze still active, as the creature’s body began to dissolve, he noticed something new. Something he had never been able to perceive before.

From the dissipating, muddy brown aura of the creature’s soul, a single, faint, almost invisible thread of golden light emerged. It stretched upwards. Past the ceiling of the tunnel. Past the rock and earth. Upwards into an infinite, unseen nothingness.

It was a tether. A line. A conduit.

He was seeing the harvest.

For the first time, he was a direct, first-hand witness to the Hades Core’s grand, cosmic theft. The siphoning of a soul’s energy to feed its own insatiable hunger.

The sight was not terrifying. It was not shocking. It was simply... clarifying. His enemy, an abstract, theoretical concept, a whispered warning in a dead man’s journal, was now a tangible, observable reality.

He could see its tendrils. Its feeding tubes. Wrapped around the very fabric of his world.

He stood there in the silent, dusty tunnel. A new, cold, and utterly absolute purpose solidifying in his heart.

He was a Soul Reaper. And he had just found a harvest he was determined to disrupt.