Chapter 129: Troublesome Skills...

Inside the Soul Space.

​After [Dream] lost control, the group watched Night suffer from the overwhelming hunger, and they felt his pain as well.

​Lucy asked [Dream], "Is there a way to remove the [Sin of Hunger]?"

​[Dream] answered, "We would need to take him to a True Devil which is on par with Gods and Immortals. Only someone like that can remove the [Sin of Hunger] from Night."

​Vivianne, who was also knowledgeable about this, spoke up. "The best way to deal with it is to eat," she said, sitting on the throne that had morphed into a wheelchair to accommodate her.

​[Dream] nodded. "For now satisfying the hunger is the only way to deal with it."

​Death frowned. "But something tells me it’s not a complete solution."

​[Dream] looked at her in surprise before nodding. "Yes. The more he eats, the more hungry he will feel next time, and the effect of the [Sin of Hunger] depends on the caster."

​"Alze-beus is a Devil Monarch," Vivianne explained, "and a genius on the path of Gluttony. Some say his strength is second only to the Devil Sovereign Aathan."

​Lucy tilted her head. "If he eats Alze-beus’s corpse, it should be fine, right?" That was the corpse of a Bonafide Devil Monarch.

​"It’s a Devil Monarch rank corpse, so it is more than fine," Vivianne mused. "Won’t eating something like that kill him?"

​Vivianne was new to the group, so she didn’t know much about them except for their names.

Of course, she was surprised that the boy had an Inner World and a Goddess residing in it. It made her realize she was not the only one with cheats in this universe. Compared to the boy, hers were probably mild.

​The others also looked at [Dream] in worry. This was the first time they had come across such a high-level corpse.

​[Dream] assured them, "Night will be fine. Unless it’s a God... no, even if it is a God if it has a similar Aspect to his, he should be fine."

​Seeing their surprised looks, she elaborated. "Alze-beus is a Devil Monarch on the path of Gluttony, and Night grows stronger by devouring."

​"There will be no backlash. In fact, something unexpectedly good might happen if he devours the corpse."

​[Dream] turned and asked System Girl, "What is happening with the System?"

​System Girl replied, "The main System is locked, though our Dream System is online, but functions like Skills, EV, Skill merging, upgrading, and the System Shop have become inaccessible."

​Eve blinked. "So Master will not be able to use skills from now on?"

​System Girl clarified in a depressed tone, "Yes." Her eyes drooped like a kicked puppy.

​The locked functions were the main things that made her valuable. Now that they were sealed, System Girl was starting to feel useless.

​Lilith moved over and gently hugged her. System Girl muttered as she hugged Lilith back, "Without skills, how will Night fight now?"

​"He will have to rely on cultivation," [Dream] said. She looked genuinely happy that Night would finally focus on his cultivation.

After all, cultivation was relatively safe, and Night wouldn’t have to constantly kill if he focused on that path.

​Soon, they were all watching Night moaning loudly as he ate the corpse.

​[Dream] covered her mouth and chuckled. "My, my, what is my naughty boy doing..."

​System Girl blushed furiously. "Tsk."

​Lilith and Eve looked like they had just discovered a whole new world. Zero had a look of deep understanding, while Sage just looked confused.

​Lucy shook her head as saliva pooled in her own mouth. "I told him raw food is best... There is no going back now."

​"I want to be eaten as well..." Death murmured. The others looked at her blankly and collectively chose to ignore her.

​By now, it was obvious that Death had a thing for Night.

​Blade leaned quietly against the plant, but the eyes on her hilt flashed brightly every time Night moaned.

​Vivianne was the one most affected. Unlike the others, she was highly in tune with blood and soul because of her Talent, so she actually felt a fraction of what Night was experiencing due to their new bond.

​The worst part of it was that she couldn’t move her own body to react.

​While in Hell, Vivianne had readily offered her body to Alze-beus, but that was done purely out of desperation. Otherwise, she was as pure as sandalwood. Calling her a maiden was truly accurate.

​Her face flushed a deep crimson as Night stopped suppressing his moans. Fortunately, the others were too engrossed in watching Night to notice her embarrassment.

​They got worried when they noticed cracks forming in the Nightmare Mist, but [Dream] assured them it was nothing serious.

​But when the Nightmare Mist mutated, even she was shocked.

​[Dream] muttered in disbelief, "He is eating his records."

​The others looked at her with an expression of what’s the big deal about that? which made [Dream]’s lips twitch.

​It was a good thing Vivianne spoke up. "Eating records shouldn’t be possible. Because if it was, then just eating a chicken would literally turn you into part chicken."

​Death sighed in pure adoration. "But Master is able to do that?"

​Something in that besotted expression annoyed Vivianne, though she didn’t know exactly why. She clarified, "Yes... and if he managed to get the whole of Alze-beus, he would become unstoppable. Unfortunately, that’s not possible. To do that, you would need to go to Hell, defeat him in his home territory, and also face the Devil Sovereign Aathan, the ruler of Hell."

​[Dream] finally calmed down. "Don’t worry. We have plenty of time to get him. We just need to ensure Night can beat Alze-beus’s main body in ten years."

​The others nodded, while Vivianne internally scoffed, thinking something like that was impossible.

​Everyone conveniently skipped discussing the part about the Tower of Games, feeling it was not the right time to bring it up. Because they were Night’s summons, all of them had seen the system notifications.

​Down below, they saw Night completely covered in a cocoon of Nightmare Mist, seeming to undergo some sort of metamorphosis.

​But not even a minute had passed before the Soul Space started undergoing tremendous changes. The Inner World began to become incredibly stable, but the truly worrying part was the deep cracks that appeared in Night’s Soul every now and then.

​But instead of Night screaming in agony, they heard him muttering unholy things, sounding as if he were enjoying every single moment of the pain.

​"Let’s bring in Sara and Death’s mother," [Dream] said. "I hope this doesn’t cause them a disturbance." As she said it, she snapped her fingers, and the surroundings shifted as the beds holding Sara and Death’s mother were pulled safely toward the group.

​The others immediately surrounded them in worry while [Dream] created a sturdy barrier near the core region to protect them.

...

​Meanwhile, Night watched as his Nightmare Mist ate his skills one by one. The Common Grade skills were the easiest to eat.

​The very first skill took the most time, but after one was successfully devoured, the rest of the Common skills followed smoothly. As each skill was devoured, he received the records related to that skill.

​Instead of just System access, he gained true fundamental knowledge of the abilities. But this came with a significant drawback.

​A skill cast with System assistance would always happen with the exact same efficiency. But a skill he cast all by himself depended on many factors, like affinity, mastery, practice, and above all, the Aspects themselves.

If he didn’t possess the corresponding Aspect, the process of casting the spell manually became a lot harder.

​But if I do this, I will be able to awaken the Aspects themselves naturally in the future... It’s a fantastic deal.

​If Night knew his System access to skills had been locked anyway, he would have been infinitely happier about eating them.

​But the process became hard when he reached the Uncommon skills, and it became a pain when it came to the Rare skills.

​Luckily, troublesome skills like [Summon], [Mystic Eye], and his [Body Modification] skill were relatively easy to eat. If they had been Rare Grade or higher, he didn’t know what he would have done.

​[Mystic Eye] was not a simple skill. After he digested it, he felt his perception sharpen, allowing him to devour the remaining skills much more easily.

​The most troublesome skill in the Rare rank was [Nightmare Fire]. It took all his focus; he even had to stop devouring the other skills entirely just to make this one yield.

​But the results were just as rewarding as the trouble he went through. As soon as he ate the skill, he was able to use Nightmare Fire to boost his devouring efficiency.

The merged Nightmare Mist and Nightmare Fire drastically boosted his speed, without which eating Epic skills like [Wind Overdrive] would have been tedious.

​When he reached [Stone Creation], he finally found his match.

By now, only three skills were left in his soul. [Nightmare Domain] and [Summon Evolution] were Unique Grade skills that stood out among the others like a sore thumb, which was why he had left them for last.

​But he didn’t expect [Stone Creation], a Legendary skill that looked a lot weaker than the Unique ones, to completely stonewall him. He threw everything he had at devouring it, but it refused to budge.

​And then there was the other skill that he didn’t even bother counting.

​The Divine Skill [Fire in the Hole]. If his Unique skills looked like sore thumbs, this one looked like a swollen hand. He felt his very awareness burn to a crisp every time it neared the rune.

​It would take a genuine miracle to deal with that one.

​Night sighed internally. ( ￣ー￣)