Resonance of the Moon Priest

The successive booms rolled across the battlefield in waves.

The ground was littered with fallen goat spawn, their tongues lolling out in death.

I had only paid attention to essence devouring, yet my level rose alongside it. I poured every bonus stat into Polar Night. Since I could raise the rest through Devour, there was no reason to hold back.

“What a feast.”

“Who cares when no one’s watching?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

I let Nyx’s scolding slide in one ear and out the other, then descended slowly to the ground.

Rapid Growth was a versatile skill with applications in many fields. Like the chimera essence’s Mutation, it could regenerate wounds. It could also be applied to other creatures to speed up their growth.

“The essence of this isn’t healing.”

Growth didn’t necessarily mean regeneration. That was only one facet of it. Rapid Growth was actually harder to control than Mutation, which carried the risk of unpredictable changes.

“Every last one of the outer gods is abnormal.”

Beings steeped in madness. How much worse must it be for Shub-Niggurath, the mother of all demons? The same applied to her creations, the goat spawn. The essence drawn from them carried the nature of the void, which meant the power of the void intervened during the rapid growth process.

“Better to show you directly than waste breath explaining.”

I pressed my hand to the plain.

Void mana seeped into the grass. In seconds it had grown to knee height.

“Keep watching.”

The grass shot up to waist height. Then the leaves turned purple and sprouted sharp thorns like animal fangs. The plant gaped its maw wide, stretched out, and thrashed as though trying to swallow Nyx whole.

“Creatures from the outer universe tend to be like this.”

“Not if I control the void power properly.”

I answered leisurely while burning the plant to ash with a fireball. Even with the side effect of void corruption, the skill’s potential applications were endless. Depending on the situation, that very side effect could even be turned into an advantage.

The corner of my mouth twitched upward. I had expected some kind of synergy after devouring an essence directly tied to the Void. It was something I had never experienced before the regression. Still, that knowledge could be used indirectly like this.

“Why?”

A black tide swept across the plains. I thought I had slain quite a few goat spawn, yet more appeared than I had already defeated. And that wasn’t all.

“Variants are mixed in too.”

Goat spawn sporting wings similar to nightgaunts had appeared. Creating wings through Rapid Growth—how original. I didn’t recall seeing anything like that before the regression.

I frowned. Losing had never crossed my mind.

“Just annoying.”

It was a shame I could no longer milk the herding tactic for more benefits. Still, there were plenty of corpses I hadn’t devoured yet. A perfect stage had opened to test my newly acquired skill.

“Raise Dead.”

The fallen goat spawn staggered upright.

The undead produced depended on the corpse’s state of preservation. Although the outer surfaces were scorched, their high magic resistance had kept their limbs intact, so every one rose as a ghoul.

“Just bear with it.”

I calmed the grumbling Nyx and sent the ghoul pack forward.

The moment an axe struck one, the ghoul staggered. It raked its claws across a goat spawn, but the damage was negligible. Intermediate undead like ghouls simply couldn’t match platinum-rank combatants like the goat spawn.

“Just watch.”

I poured dark mana into a ghoul whose shoulder had been caved in. Like rewinding time, the crushed shoulder reattached itself.

“Urrrrgh.”

The ghoul latched onto another goat spawn and tore into its flesh.

“It’s fine as long as I have enough mana.”

Thanks to the Primordial Dragon Heart, I had mana to spare. The time needed to convert it into dark mana was nearly zero, so I kept restoring the undead.

But—

Whether in numbers or quality, I couldn’t handle the endless tide of goat spawn. The longer the fight dragged on, the more the battle line was pushed back.

Tsk.

“Hold on. Let me think.”

I rubbed my chin. The problem stemmed from having overflowing mana but lacking the passive skills or support magic to make proper use of it. The number of undead I could create was low, and their combat ability was weaker than I remembered from before the regression. Maybe I should have devoured more essences that granted synergy effects.

Wait.

“What if I transform into that priest here?”

“Yeah. Who knows? It might grant synergy to my undead-handling skills.”

Nothing to lose. Thanks to the goat spawn essence, the cooldown had been reduced, so I could use it again.

A pure white mask appeared over my face. Strength drained from my body as if I had used Demonic Power to concentrate every stat into magic.

At that moment—

“Urrrrrrrrgh!”

The sound leaking from the ghouls’ throats grew far more grotesque and louder.

Oh? It actually worked?

Black currents swirled around the ghouls. The Moon Priest’s innate passive had strengthened the undead.

“So that’s how it works.”

With Death Aura active, even the undead I created with Raise Dead had grown stronger. In that case, what would happen if I used Raise Dead while transformed into the Moon Priest?

I rearranged the dark mana at once.

“Raise Dead.”

The number of undead had more than doubled. As expected, the Moon Priest was a monster specialized in commanding the dead. By assuming its form and traits through Void Mirror, the related skills had grown stronger as well.

The more-than-doubled ghoul horde tore into the goat spawn. Even when destroyed, they were restored again. Meanwhile the goat spawn, injuries piling up, began collapsing one by one.

“You’re right. My hands are itching.”

The battle showed no signs of ending. An hour had passed since it began, yet we were still locked in a stalemate.

My body returned to normal. Two-thirds of the charging ghouls collapsed to the ground. The number of goat spawn had decreased noticeably, but they still swarmed like locusts.

Nyx, who had been perched on my shoulder, materialized in her homunculus body.

“Even the goddess is joining the fight?”

“Then why?”

When Nyx spread her hand, the power of Polar Night surged like a tidal wave and swept the goat spawn away. No need to worry about her.

“Good luck.”

I plunged into the middle of the goat spawn horde.

The battle only ended several hours later. Additional waves of goat spawn had kept pouring in, stretching the fight far longer than expected.

“Time to finish devouring.”

I unfolded my body of darkness, scattered the power of Polar Night across a wide area, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and activated Devour. Touching each corpse individually would have taken too long. Like a vacuum cleaner sucking up dust, I devoured every last essence from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠corpses strewn across the plain without leaving a single one behind.

The essences of corpses turned into undead had changed. Before the regression I couldn’t devour undead essences, so I had half-abandoned the related skills. Becoming a Predator had flipped the situation completely. I had already collected every ghoul essence on the nineteenth floor, but I would need to consider creating other types of undead to gather their essences as well.

“I’m a little tired.”

“Lean on my shoulder.”

Nyx rested her head against me. Wait a second. Weren’t you supposed to be resting in spirit form?

I almost pushed her away, but the moment I heard her even breathing I pulled my hand back. I couldn’t shove her aside when she was this exhausted.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?”

No answer came. Falling asleep in the middle of this carnage—she really wasn’t ordinary. I lowered my stance and supported her carefully so she wouldn’t wake.

Whew.

I let out a short sigh and shed the mental fatigue. My body remained in perfect condition thanks to the Primordial Dragon Heart and the Earth Mother Goddess’s Protection. Still, after fighting the nightgaunt swarm and then the goat spawn without rest, mental exhaustion had piled up. A short break should be fine.

Using Nyx’s breathing as background noise, I considered our next destination. We were currently in the southwest of Dreamland. Heading straight for the center was too dangerous, so we would move west while hunting Tantalus’s hounds or the ‘Crawling One.’ That should further increase the synergy from Void Mirror as well. I needed to make full use of real combat to train the power of the void and strengthen myself at the same time.

“Mmm…”

By the way, is this goddess going to wake up at all?