Re: Evolution Online

[Soul Splice]

Liam grinned as he activated the cheap insignificant D-Rank skill that he had selected from the list of available skills back in the magic shop.

However, the effect of the skill at the moment was in no way at the D-Rank level. The second Liam mentally willed for the skill to be active, the air around him changed drastically.

Everything happened in a fraction of a second. 

First, several soul minions spilled into all the nooks and corners of the gaping hole in the earth, startling both the spider beast and the vampire. 

Though atleast one of them had seen these soul minions beforehand, this time the sheer number was enough to scare the bejesus out of the duo.

All sorts of creatures popped out of thin air and stood threateningly waiting to tear them apart. The only consolation was that these creatures were not nearly strong enough to take them out.

Roar! The spider started maniacally waving his many limbs around, trying to take down these minions that were suffocating him.

"You cannot win me with just these ants!" Helikatos shouted at the top of his lungs, but little did he know that Liam was not nearly done yet.

Before the spider beast could attack and damage any of the soul minions, the numerous creatures started magically disappearing right under his nose.

This made him even more vexed and confused. Just what the hell was this human up to?

The spider's gaze bounced all over the hollow space and finally landed on Liam as he growled and dashed forward again to finish the human being once and for all.

However, unable to take another step forward, the spider froze on the spot. When his gaze fell on the human being, he was shell-shocked. 

For an instant, he felt his whole being tremble and cover. It was as if a god was standing in front of him. Fear gripped him from the inside out. He couldn't even lift a muscle. It was as if he couldn't breathe without the permission of the person in front of him.

What the hell? What was happening?

The spider gazed at Liam blankly, unable to get a grasp on himself. How did he suddenly become so strong?

Liam, on the other hand, grinned. A maniacal look appeared on his face as a feeling of strength and power poured into him from all directions.

Neither the pitiful spider nor the vampire was able to sense anything, but he could clearly sense every bit of change his body was undergoing at the moment.

Hundreds and thousands of soul dots collecting around him, each of them attracted to him as if he was a magnet.

And these soul dots simply did not gather around him. They merged with his soul temporarily and filled him with strength, a bombastically exponential strength that boosted him… Ten times? Twenty times? Hundred times? Thousand times?

Liam could not tell. All he knew was that infinite strength was filling him up. The feeling of power was intoxicating! For the next 5 seconds, it was as if he was invincible!

[Soul Splice], a Necromancer class skill that was only supposed to be D-Rank, was currently giving him this sort of unimaginable power.

When Liam first read the skill description for the skill, he already felt the endless possibilities this skill offered. 

[Soul Splice: Command the souls of the undead under your control and temporarily absorb their strength as your own; The effect lasts for 5 seconds; Cooldown: 1 hour]

Sure, this skill was indeed a D-Rank skill, but that was when a necromancer wielded it. Not for him. 

It did not take long for Liam to see what exactly happened here.

Though he did not have much knowledge of necromancy per se, he had experimented with it one or two times back inside the game. 

Especially after he had acquired the soulmancer skill, he was able to get a couple of shallow insights into this class.

When a dead body was reanimated according to the necromancy skill, it was an entirely different ball game compared to his own class soulmancer where the dead soul was called upon.

There were a lot of differences and limitations in both of these classes and a completely different set of rules, but there was indeed a fraction of commonality. 

Even if it was an undead reanimated by a necromancer, there was still a lick of a soul remnant in the dead body.

Liam did not know if it was possible to bring the dead back only because of this lick of the remnant soul, but he quickly understood that it was only because of this that the skill was listed as D-Rank.

For any other person, this necromancer skill wouldn't boost their strength and power by that much. It would only remain a D-Rank skill.

At most, they could get a 5 times burst buff. That, too, was only possible if the necromancer controlled hundreds of undead? How many licks of souls did one even need to form a whole soul?

But he was the exception to this skill. While this skill was normally a D-Rank skill, in his hands, it became an S-Rank skill or perhaps even an SSS-Rank skill.

After all, Liam simply did not control the flesh and bones of the undead. He controlled their souls! 

And if the skill really did what it was supposed to do, then he could possibly become tremendously powerful, at least for the next 5 seconds, by temporarily absorbing all of his soul minions.

Not to mention he had about 1500 of them!

Liam knew that he was gambling, and there was only a fifty-fifty possibility at most that this would work, but he had a strong hunch about it that he couldn't ignore. His gut feeling told him to go for it.

While 'Empower the undead', the labeled S-Rank skill was the safe choice in this scenario, and he definitely lacked a skill like this to mass buff his army, he needed to think about the enemies in front of him. It was not just the apocalypse that he was trying to survive.

The divine temple, Crawford, and now these vampires… his enemies were not on his same level or at a level where he could reach easily. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that they were a world apart.

They were several times stronger than him and had powers that he did not know or understand. The world he was living in was also now a big unknown. Everything was changing, and everything was beyond his control.

In these uncertain times, he needed a skill like this, a trump card that could make him feel invincible, even if it was for 5 seconds!

And the moment Liam selected the skill, he knew that he had been right and his gamble had paid off big time!