Awakened: SSS Ranked Soul king

[Extraction complete, new beast soul added: partial soul rootstalk (mythic)]

As Guilliman entered the outpost with the rest, he took a seat on the cold, hard floor and looked around a bit. The others were busy scouting for dangers in the immediate surroundings, and some crowded around Victoria with awe in their eyes.

That thing she did had won over even the members of Cyrus's cohort.

"Anyway"

studying the new mythic beast soul he had extracted from Victoria's kill, Guilliman couldn't help but frown. Partial soul… he hadn't seen this before, but he could draw three conjectures already.

The first would be that this was the nature of the beast—maybe its soul was just too chaotic to retrieve the full version from it. It sounded simple, and actually was… there were a myriad of creatures with unsuitable souls for extraction.

The second was also quite simple; it had to do with time—maybe he took too much time to try the extraction and only got a little after trying because most of the soul had crossed over.

Souls were not naturally meant to stay in the physical world, after all.

However, despite how sane both sounded, Guilliman had a feeling that they weren't right. In fact, he was certain about the third option being the correct one, and it was that…

Victoria had destroyed a better half of its soul.

That flame aspect of hers was just too destructive; it was able to eradicate the monster—both body and soul.

This was extremely disturbing; in truth… the flame was the bane of existence for most souls—not mundane fire, though; only extremely special fires could achieve it.

That meant that Victoria here was a natural enemy to all shamans.

'She could never' Guilliman smirked. He, of course, was the exception. There was little that could harm his heavy soul body. In fact, close to nothing, he would presume.

The hand of judgement being one, and even that failed to end him.

"Still…" Looking at the silver-haired beauty to the side, Guilliman smirked bitterly. He had to be careful with her, at the very least.

"The parameter is clear: no beasts on this floor," Jemie flashed forward and announced to Victoria and Cyrus. Of course, his gaze was firmly planted on Victoria.

Cyrus would only continue to fade into obscurity.

"Good, ehhh, set up camp and a guard regiment… we are in enemy territory… also seal the windows in case," Victoria said as she slowly walked to the wall and sat down.

The look on her face was as drowsy; her skin seemed to be red, with small wisps of smoke floating out of her head.

She was hot!! Extremely so.

"Fountain of ice, pour of rain, heavenly nectar, rushing drain" all of a sudden, Hamdel's voice resounded from the side, causing a cluster of ice to form above her, slowly dripping and pouring onto her head.

Fzzzzz

Like water to hot iron, steam pours out of her body, cooling her down.

When she spoke of the flaw in her aspect, she was talking about this. It couldn't kill her… in fact, it would actively heal her… however, only externally.

For her internal heat would remain untouched, causing her excruciating pain followed by her passing out.

"Why did she have to risk herself by using that?" one of the members of Cyrus's cohort asked.

"I… she did it to save us?"

"Hmm, I don't even know what to say."

Murmurs spread through the group, causing even Cyrus to melt; this girl… she was something else.

"She really is," Guilliman said… he couldn't tell if she was acting or not, but he had seen her burn something 5 times the size of that beast… though the rank matters, so he wasn't completely sure.

The next few days entailed search and discovery all over the outpost. Guilliman, Jemie, and Quinn were in charge of this, with Quinn as the forward scout.

He was able to move seamlessly around the outpost, entering places that would otherwise be hard to enter without preparation. He would then assess what it would take to breach that area and what value there was in it.

In a span of those few days, they found a lot of rusted and worn-out materials, some journals, and even a few weapons. All in all, it was a good downpour.

However, on this particular day, Quinn had found a map and sent Guilliman to retrieve it.

The problem was that this place was infested with grand stage plant folk. Not that many, though—just three.

"Hehe, who knew the day would come when I could say just three grand stage beasts. That girl is infesting me with her bold ideas."

In a long corridor, two stories up from where the two chorots had based themselves, Guilliman could be seen standing with a cloak over him.

"Door number one, door number two, door number three…" Walking across the corridor, Guilliman moved rather casually but as close to the wall as he possibly could.

Below was a group of plant folk beasts that could probably tear him apart if they felt him move too close to them.

"Jemie is the best fit for this… I wonder why they sent me," Guilliman complained.

Get in and get out—this was the speedster's forte; having him do all that was a serious lack of resource management.

Of course, there was the part of Guilliman lazing around all day that placed him in this predicament in the first place:

Jemie was jealous of his cushy job as a scout, where he could just sit down and send out a beast apparition to do his bidding. So on this fateful day, he suddenly became sick!!

"Asshole!!" Guilliman cursed, reaching a particular door where he then stopped moving.

This was where he was supposed to be. Of course, there wasn't really a door here—it was just a doorway. As such, he could already feel the moving creatures on the inside.

"At least I get to test it out," Guilliman felt some dread. Fighting one grand beast was something, but three? That was suicide. However, his mission wasn't to fight them—it was to get in and get out.

"Manifest" reaching out, Guilliman called forth, and all of a sudden a mass of a greenish blob appeared out of thin air and wrapped itself around his arm.

This was the partial soul rootstalk.

Before now, he still had reservations as to why he only got this part of the beast's soul, but now he was certain it was because of Victoria's flame.

What else could cause such deformities?

"Still though," Guilliman smirked, then crouched down.

Boom

He turned, taking a direct beeline through the doorway, moving at incredible speeds.

As soon as he appeared in the room, a dozen tentacles shot towards him from all sides, all of them threatening to end him.

Without a second thought, Guilliman stretched his hand out, forming a shield mass made from the mythic beast soul he extracted.

The countless attacks rained down on him, but the shields held firm, not budging.

Aside from it being mythic rank, the beast soul had a special defense ability that helped to stop any attack it viewed as a blunt attack in its track.

These grand beasts were too close to gain the momentum of sharpness required to slash through it, which meant that…

‑woosh

‑woosh

‑woosh

Guilliman summoned both his Swordhorn beast echo and BladeSkin Gauntlet beast echo, each augmenting the other, and sent a rain of slashes down at the beast.

One after the other, he took them down, increasing his stats.

[Vine stalk slain (Grand Soldier) +250 gene points]

[Vine stalk slain (Grand Soldier) +250 gene points]

[Vine stalk slain (Grand Knight) +400 gene points]

[Updating stats

Name: Guilliman Naldir

Rank: Level 6

Gene: 1920/2000 (Yellow)

Class: Soul king

Affinity: Wind, Ice, Arcane

Agility: 200 Power: 250 Stamina: 300]

Just like that, Guilliman was close to level 7… only a few dozen gene points to go.

"Now where is that map?" Looking at the sprawling vines on the ground, Guilliman looked around the room with a casual gaze.

This place looked like an office. It had desks, compartments for storing paper, and the usual. One thing Guilliman didn't notice was black obsidian.

"Looks like they developed rather quickly," he mused.

It took the outside world over a thousand years to completely adapt hologram technology, and these guys did so in a mere 200. It was worth admiring.

Of course, the outside world was still ahead, but it was only a matter of time.

"Ohh, jackpot!!" Guilliman smiled as his gaze landed on a rolled-up paper map. He quickly grabbed it and rolled it up, looking through it.

His eyes widened, then dimmed in a frown before he rolled it back and walked out of the room. Following the exact way in which he came, Guilliman went down the stairs in quick succession.

As he passed by, several beast corpses could be seen on the way; after about 5 minutes, he reached a long corridor where he proceeded to slap a couple of times.

Then, all of a sudden, the door opened up at the side, and three armed individuals stepped out.

"I don't bite," Guilliman joked before following them into the room.