Chapter 229 - 228 True Terror

Embodiment of Eclipse, Bright Form. And Soul Devour.'

Activating his strongest ability along with his most dangerous, Marcus felt an enormous spike in his power as the two skills worked in tandem.

In fact, Marcus had never felt this good in either of his lives. 

As the immense power coursed through him Marcus felt as if there was nothing he could not do.

'It is time to see what I am truly capable of.'

Now glowing with an immensely powerful bright light with a dark halo around him, and a dark purple aura of death, Marcus began giving of an overwhelming pressure.

Drazen and his party were obviously stunned to see this sudden shift.

In a mere instance a person that they had believed was of no consequence, someone they thought was more than ten levels lower than any of them, suddenly turned into an oppressive being that could kill any of them if they were not careful.

"Azrel, Cal, take the front and activate your- 'Huh, why am I looking at the ceiling.'

Drazen's head then hit the floor as Marcus with speed that no one other than Treasa had been able to follow, had moved past all of Drazen's party members and with one slash of his scythe sliced off his head.

Drazen's now dead body slumped over onto the ground as his party looked in horror at the platinum haired beauty that was looking at them all like they were already dead.

The one named Cal who was the second strongest and Drazen's confidant said, "Shit" As he pulled out a small glowing sphere and sent it right towards Marcus.

The sphere quickly expanded creating a bubble around Marcus and completely sealing him within.

Yet the bubble that should have been strong enough to hold even a level fifty beast or monster for five minutes began to crack and shattered almost as quickly as it had formed.

One of the men seeing this had charged toward Marcus thinking that this was his chance and swung his mithril cudgel forward with multiple skills activated to increase his power.

Except as the cudgel was about to hit Marcus, a fiendish spectral arm whose fingers were now clawed came out of Marcus' body and grabbed the weapon stopping it cold.

The man then felt an intense searing pain as both of his arms were cut off by one slash of Marcus' scythe, and the spectral arm pieced right into his chest before smashing him into the cave's wall and leaving a huge crater.

However, even while their team members were being slaughtered the remaining four people led by Cal got into a formation and unleashed a barrage of powerful attacks towards Marcus.

Cal sent out a slash of mana from his sickle, and the man named Azrel had thrown a javelin that was enchanted with a powerful exploding formation.

At the same time the other two members and just finished chants for two different tier five spells, one being a massive icicle over fifty feet long, and the other being a familiar powerful tornado Marcus had faced before.

"Darkness drill, laser."

Having lined up all six of his light and darkness magnifying lenses, Marcus sent a combination of a heightened tier four light and darkness magic spell through them, and the two spells began to merge.

The two spells then came out as one massive spiraling blast of light and darkness that met the attacks from the four people remaining from Drazen's party.

However, even with all of the power the four men had sent at him, Marcus' attack which was stronger than anything he had ever used before overwhelmed everything in its way.

The blast then reached its targets shredding and incinerating everything in its path before bursting through the waterfall and flying far into the distance where it caused a huge explosion that rocked the entire lake.

Marcus himself was actually quite stunned to see the devastating attack he had unleashed. 

It was a power that had exceeded even his eclipse meteor and had gone far beyond what he had thought possible of himself.

Nevertheless, as he looked out at the carnage he had caused, one man had miraculously survived.

He was torn up and bleeding all over, with horrible burns and darkness corroding him, but he was still most certainly alive.

Cal the only one that had managed to survive the devastating attack and only thanks to a powerful one-time use defense artifact he carried with him that had put up a supposedly invincible barrier, was still alive.

Yet this barrier that should have been able to stop even a tier six spell, had been broken in just a couple of seconds leaving Cal on his own to defend against the catastrophic attack.

But somehow, he had persevered and survived and was now dragging his horribly injured body towards the exit struggling to live.

Unfortunately, Marcus was not feeling generous enough to allow for survivors especially not while in the high like state the power he was using gave him.

Moving in a flash Marcus appeared in front of the crawling Cal, reached his hand down and picked him up by the neck.

Cal began to flail about hitting Marcus with arms and legs trying to get him to let go, but he was quickly suffocating as Marcus crushed his throat.

But of course, Marcus did not have time to simply suffocate Cal, it had already been nine seconds since he started using his soul devour unique skill and too much longer would lead to bringing him into the danger zone.

So, he used the other part of his soul devour skill and began to eat Cal's soul. Not only would this strengthen Marcus a bit, but it would also help to counteract a bit of the damage from devouring his own soul.

Cal's very being then began to scream as Marcus started to devour his soul.

It was a terror that could not be compared, as even in death at least your soul would remain and go onto the next path of life, but with this all that awaited Cal was oblivion.

Soon what little resistance he was able to mount faded as Cal's soul was broken down by Marcus and parts of it were integrated into his own.

Of course, this came with its own problems for Marcus, as the after effects of devouring someone's soul kicked in and he began to feel some of Cal's emotions and relive his most prominent memories.

Yet unlike what had happened when he had merged with Irene or when he had tested this ability out on a couple of beasts, Marcus did not see the hardest moments of Cal's life but his most enjoyable.

Up until this moment where Marcus had killed him, Cal had an easy life being the second son of a count.

He was a talented man who had excelled with the sword and never had to work hard to achieve anything.

But at his core Cal was a vile man who liked to torture people and what Marcus saw was the monster of a man and his most brutal killings.

It was truly like scenes out of a horror movie and far from what Marcus expected.

However, as fast as it came so did it end as Marcus came back to himself and deactivated his skills.

Now he had to not only suffer the physical backlash of his abilities but the mental ones.

He could feel Cal's debauched personality trying to influence him, but Marcus stayed strong and pushed the shreds of Cal's influence into the back of his mind.

After doing that Marcus fell onto his hands and knees as he waited for his soul regeneration to get to work.

He could tell that while his solid form was still holding up, his soul was truly a mangled mess right now and needed time to recover.

'Just a few minutes, I just need to bear the pain for a bit.'

This was the first time Marcus had truly put his soul devour skill to the test, and even after only eleven seconds the damage it had caused was greater than Marcus would have thought.

He had checked his status and found his spirit stat was currently at only forty percent of its normal value, meaning he was far weaker now and was at only about fifty percent of his normal HP.

Luckily, he had picked up the soul regeneration skill which was fixing the damaged caused by soul devour otherwise he would have been in a weakened state permanently.

'What the hell was that.' Jarek thought as he stared at Marcus panting on the floor.

He had just seen something that seemed out of this world. 

Certainly, many people had different abilities and powers that could cause huge amounts of damage, but what Marcus had just done was pretty much unfathomable.

Maybe if he had been some extraordinary level like seventy it would have seemed feasible, but Marcus was only level forty.

At only level forty Marcus had just displayed power greater than either Jarek or Treasa could muster even at their best.

And while it appeared that the backlash of using such power had Marcus on the verge of collapse, he had still wielded such power.

However, as stunned as Jarek was, he quickly got himself together and ran towards his companion's side.

They had spent a good amount of time together in the dungeon and the three of them had gotten pretty close.

As Jarek approached he began thinking about what kind of potions to give to Marcus fumbling through his magic bag.

When he arrived, he had pulled out three potions, one being a high tier healing potion, another being a mana regeneration potion, and the final being a stamina recovery potion.

Yet as he tried to feed the potions to Marcus, he just raised a hand and said, "Unless any of those is an elixir, they are not going to help. Just give me a minute to recover and I will be fine."

Jarek hearing this took a good long look at Marcus wondering if he should just give him the potions anyway, but Treasa came over and said, "Are you saying that you need an elixir because I do have one if it is necessary."

Shaking his head and looking up resolutely at Treasa Marcus said, "No, it is fine, the backlash of the skills I used will wear off in a bit, there is no need to waste something so precious when I will be okay after just a bit of rest."

After that both Jarek and Treasa gave Marcus his space and appraised the damage he had caused, wondering what kind of monster they had allied themselves with.