I Hate Systems

Cling!

A coin flew out from a pouch and burst to become a celestial bird that flew towards Essencer, attacking him with a flurry of scratches.

Essencer healed his injuries by expending some of his lifeforce. At this moment, Aggressor took out a gun and shot a bullet towards Essencer, piercing through his chest to result in a loud boom.

"Ugh!" Essencer glared at Aggressor when suddenly, he could feel thousands of worms rush towards his stomach, alarmed, "What the heck is this?"

He tried to absorb their essence, only to stare in shock at the fact that they were just like lifeless puppets, having nothing in them. Only after they absorbed some of his lifeforce was he able to absorb their essence.

But the absorbed essence only contained his lifeforce, 'What the heck are these creatures? They seem to counter my powers.'

'So, that's the experience of the Aggressors at play.' Peddler smiled upon observing his actions. Aggressors spent all their lives devising methods to counter the faith of their enemies. With their Deity providing them with all the knowledge and experience to further their goals, their preparations happened at an accelerated pace. And hence, they were troublesome foes.

The Essencer Guild was one of the largest targets of the Aggressors. And hence, they had prepared a lot of methods to counter this authority.

Essencer's powers were unlike his followers. He was able to absorb the essence stolen by the worms easily. But, that was only in terms of the lifeforce itself. The worms also gorged on his flesh and blood, so to recover from that, he had to expend lifeforce and heal.

Moreover, even after he absorbed their essence, all he did was revert them to their original states. Following that, they continued to devour his lifeforce. There was a conservation of energy applied here, and hence, Essencer wasn't actually losing any power to the worms.

But that couldn't be said about his attention. He had to focus a portion of his attention on constantly stealing the essence from the worms. And against Peddler, that was a dangerous action to do.

Peddler took the initiative and began to corner him little by little, never giving him the time to fully deal with the worms.

While the two were fighting, Aggressor hid behind the wall of coins, closing his eyes as he began to grant blessings to the fanatics among his followers, giving them power temporarily as they were prompted with a command, "Destroy the Essencer Guild."

...

"Dammit, I cannot even return without my powers." The Apostle to Essencer clenched his teeth, vexed upon hearing the declaration from the Devil he worshipped.

He was currently reduced to the level of a mortal. Originally, even if he were to lose his powers, he would still retain the faith that he had stolen in his stomach. But now, Essencer forcefully took everything to face his enemies.

It worried the Apostle. 'No, I should gather more faith. This is a dangerous situation if the Devil was pushed back to such an extent.'

Thinking as such, he walked on the street and broke into a nearby house, grinning upon staring at the family of four.

He punched forth with all his strength, knocking out the man of the house as he picked up a stool and began to beat up the wife and the children. Despite losing his powers as an Apostle, he wasn't a human anymore.

His body had been modified to possess twice a normal human's strength, not to mention his toughened skin. He raised his hand and tanked a bash from the wife who had slammed a rod his way.

He then grabbed the rod, yanked it out of her hold, and bashed her head in. With all four unconscious, he grabbed the man and bit into his neck, sucking in his blood voraciously, 'Yes! It works!'

His stomach was special and once the man's blood flowed into it, the lifeforce present in the blood was absorbed. Soon, like a deflated balloon, the man's dry corpse fell on the floor.

The Apostle vomited out all the blood after that, only interested in the lifeforce. Moreover, he noticed a tinge of faith belonging to the God of Humanity mixed into the lifeforce. In their desperation, the family had prayed to the God of Humanity.

So, the Apostle ended up absorbing that too. Grinning in delight, he picked up the wife next and sucked in all her blood, continuing the same to her children too. With that, he gathered a decent sum of lifeforce in his body, enough to heal from serious injuries a couple of times.

'This allows me to rampage without care.' The Apostle slammed the door of the next house and jumped on the people, sustaining some injuries as he killed and absorbed their lifeforce.

He then joined his hands in prayer, 'My lord, it's not much, but I have gathered some more lifeforce.'

He sent half the lifeforce to Essencer and continued his hunt. And now, he had also obtained some faith from the people.

"Kill that monster!" A group of people surrounded him by the time he was at the fifth house, condensing weapons out of shadows to hunt him down.

"I was expecting some higher quality prey and they showed up." The Apostle let out a wide grin as he condensed a sphere, causing it to turn bright red as he threw it towards a man, watching it pierce through his shadow and melt through his body, "It's evening now. The shadow you can form is too weak to defend against an attack of this calibre."

"You should have waited until noon."

Kyak!

Ack!

Noo!

The group of people screamed in fear as they were slaughtered by the Apostle who was now able to absorb their lifeforce through contact alone. "As expected, the God of Humanity's faith is always delicious."

"Is that so?" Just as the Apostle was relishing the slaughter, a cold voice resounded from behind, startling him as he turned around and stabbed forth with the hot spear.

It pierced through the chest of a woman that had appeared behind him as he grinned, "Instead of trying to be cool, you should have taken the chance to sneak attack me. Too bad, you die as a result..."

Cough!

The Apostle coughed out blood as he felt intense pain, feeling worms devour his body from within. He stared at the woman in shock, noticing that in the place of her chest was just a shadow. And on her back was the shadow taking the shape of her heart and lungs, pulsating.

"I was supposed to be dead originally. But thanks to my God's blessings, I can live through my shadow organs." The woman spoke coldly as she observed her blood flowing over the spear and into the Apostle's body, wreaking havoc further in him until they ate him completely.

She retracted her blood from his body, experiencing her mind clear up in response, not to mention her shadow's strength while some of her injuries healed. A shadow mouth formed on the ground and crunched the Apostle's corpse into bits as she covered herself with a hood and walked away, "There should be one more from the Essencer Guild nearby. To kill so many of these fuckers..."

"Today is a happy day."