Transmigrated as a Ghost

With his eclipse meteor failing to finish off the spirit eaters that he found himself fighting against, Marcus was at a loss as to what to do.

He had tried a number of his spells, skills, and abilities and found that they were all barely effective at best.

Even one of his strongest moves the eclipse meteor had failed to kill them, and the damage they had taken was quickly vanishing.

Seeing this, Marcus knew that he was in for a world of trouble, especially due to the fact that using his full powered attack had worn him out quite a bit.

'I could use it three, no probably only two more times before exhausting myself. I doubt that would be enough to kill them. Hm maybe if I used soul burst it might be strong enough?'

Trying to think off a way to get out of this, Marcus ran some simulations in his head, but none of them seemed favorable.

Even if he used soul burst, if he was not able to kill all of them within three minutes he would be screwed.

Also, there was the possibility that he might be thrown into another battle immediately after he defeated these spirit eaters, and if his stats were quartered, he would stand no chance against just about anything.

'Voltaic bombardment.'

'Fire Storm.'

'Quasar Blast.'

Firing off a barrage of wide range spells, he tried to catch the spirit eaters off guard, but he met the same results as before. With his spiritual energy being eaten and his spells passing harmlessly though the spirit eaters.

At this rate he was just wasting energy and with his latest attempt failing, he decided to calm down a bit and think carefully about his next move.

The spirit eaters seemed content to just siphon off his power slowly from afar and let him wear himself out.

But he wondered why they were doing this when earlier one of them had attacked him.

Certainly, he had not been paying attention to them at that time, but it did not make sense that they had refrained from attacking again when they seemed to have the upper hand.

However, as he thought about it, he realized that he had managed to get in a solid hit when the first one had bitten him.

His iron sphere had connected cleanly and caused a good deal of damage.

'I guess my only option is to become a deadly chew toy.' Marcus thought as he deactivated his supreme skill.

For his strategy he was not going to need its power boost, and right now all it was doing was draining him and bringing him closer to defeat.

Then once he was ready, he sighed and walked forward towards the spirit eaters.

At first, they backed off, wary of whatever tricks Marcus might have.

But as he just stood there his arms open as if he was inviting them in, the first few of them latched onto him.

As they bit down, he felt a sharp pain in his form, and his spiritual energy began being drained at an exponential rate.

Still, he waited.

He needed at least all but one or two of them to be attacking him at the same time.

Luckily the others could not resist the veritable feast that seemed to be offering itself up to them, and quickly Marcus had all eight of the spirit eater had attached to him.

It was a horrible feeling as he was chewed on and had his essence sucked out from him, but this was all a part of his strategy.

'Two can play at this game.'

With all of the spirit eaters in place for him to initiate the next part of his plan, Marcus actived his life drain specter power.

He rarely used this ability due to it needing to be activated by touch, but right now it was the perfect counter to these spirit eaters.

It was a race to see who could drain who first.

Would their lives give out before Marcus', or would they be able to eat him before losing their lives?

'Oh, you are not getting away.'

When they felt their own lives beginning to be taken away, the spirit eaters tried to detach from Marcus, but he used his tendrils of shadows to wrap them up and keep them affixed to himself.

This also helped to increase the power of his life drain, and the fight for who could last the longest continued.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Marcus was going to be the loser in the end at this rate.

It was eight on one, and these spirit eaters specialized in eating his kind and were long lived begins that had a lot of life to give.

'I did not want it to come to this, but I do not have much of a choice.'

'Soul Devour.'

Realizing that life drain was not going to be enough, Marcus used the unique skill he tried to keep sealed away due to its heavy negative backlash.

But it was do or die time, and the spirit eaters were not the only ones that could eat souls.

Quickly Marcus began draining both the life and souls away from the spirit eaters, who began flailing around in his tendrils of shadows.

They had even stopped trying to eat him, feeling their impending doom coming.

Of course, had they continued eating instead of trying to flee they might have had a chance of winning, but Marcus' strength only rose as he took in the life force and souls of the spirit eaters.

In fact, he was pretty much taking back his own soul that the spirit eaters had been feasting on, and soon he was back up to his peak.

'I need to stop now.' Shutting off his soul devour before he actually ate the souls of the spirit eaters, he instead allowed his life drain to finish them off.

This way he would not have to deal with the heavier backlash of consuming and integrating a soul into him, which had led to a number of issues in the past.

When the last spirit eater was a dried-up husk having its life drained away, Marcus collapsed onto his knees.

He had completely exhausted himself during this battle and the use of soul devour had not helped him in anyway.

At least he had mitigated its effects by not going all in, but he still felt like he had a fever coming on from having his soul torn apart and put back together multiple times.

'I hope I never have to fight those things again.' Marcus thought as he rolled over onto his side.

"Congratulations, you have passed the trial of the first floor. Your rewards shall arrive shortly and afterwards you may advance to the second floor."

Hearing the voice of the guardian, Marcus looked around for her to give her a piece of his mind, but found that I was just some sort of automated announcement.

Around five minutes later a small treasure chest appeared in the room, like one that might be obtained after a boss fight in a normal dungeon.

'Ugh this had better be good for how hard I struggled here.'

Moving up to the chest he opened it up and was unimpressed by the contents.

Inside were simply two ingots of adamantine.

And while normally he would have been pretty happy to receive this. After the fight he had just had, he was hoping for something a bit more impressive.

'Great this is all that I got. I was hoping that I might at least get some rare skill orb, or maybe some really high tier elemental crystals.'

Sighing, Marcus picked up the two adamantine bars and stored them away into his item box.

They were still worth a lot and his supply was pretty low after he had made new equipment for himself and Lilia.

'It looks like I really am stuck here though. Even after everything I unleashed the walls are still pristine. I just hope everyone else is okay, but if they are facing similar battles, it could be bad.'

Feeling his fear coming back up now that his life was no longer in danger, Marcus could only worry about his friends and family.

He was especially worried about Lilia since she was the weakest one of them, and if she was fighting beasts or monster that were at level fifty there was no way she could get out of it alive.

'I can only hope that this special dungeon is not that cruel. Yes, it is more likely that it just pits you up against same level enemies that are difficult for you to personally deal with.'

Coming up with a rational explanation for how this dungeon worked, Marcus tried to force his trepidation down.

He had nearly died in his battle against the spirit eaters, and he was afraid that everyone else was having similar problems, and that someone might actually die.

'No, I need to stop thinking like that. They will all be fine. Now I need to continue so I can meet back up with them after clearing ten floors.'