Kishio spun sharply, instincts kicking in. He was ready to dodge when he focused on the incoming projectile clearly, it had two small black wings behind it, they flapped very lightly making almost inaudible buzzing sounds.
Kishio's eyes widened a bit in shock, he didn't expect the projectile to be a creature and a bug much less.
After getting Uragami the death god, sensing the presence of life became quite an easy task, it was just like everything that had life could die, as life and death were connected, sensing the difference was a trivial task, even wither was a skill associated with death.
According to Uragami, wither sucked out the lifeforce of anything, but Kishio hadn't completely understood the skill.
Kishio decided against using wither, going unconscious here was just like him conceding to death against an enemy, he knew the old man had a way to stop the game and he wouldn't actually die or such, he just didn't want to take any chances.
Kishio side stepped a bit at the last moment avoiding the bug, it was so close, the people watching already thought he was going to lose against the first projectile.
Apart from the powers granted, parasites also buffed the human body fitness granting people supernatural physical stats, although Kishio was a bit low in rank, the buff granted by a god level parasite was high enough to avoid such projectiles, as long as he didn't use his skills he was sure to be fine.
As soon as Kishio avoided the first bug, he sensed another one coming from his side and the same one he had just avoided turned around and headed towards him again.
The first two bugs were still approaching when he sensed two more from behind him.
'Of course, it isn't as easy as I expected,' Kishio said to himself internally.
He sprinted forward, there was a time limit of one minute for each level, he moved swiftly delivering a punch to each of the bugs approaching him from upfront, the bugs turned into a puff of smoke after Kishio's attack.
He immediately leaped into the air flipping his body backwards before delivering an attack to the other two bugs, quickly they were also disposed of turning into a puff of smoke.
Kishio stood in place, at alert, something felt strange about the bugs he had just 'killed', but he couldn't put his finger on what it was exactly, not like the gamemaster would allow him rest.
Suddenly multiple bugs came flying from different sides through the holes of the container.
"He's planning on passing the first level with only his body fitness," someone from the crowd watching Kishio's performance commented.
"It…it's impossible. No one's attempted to clear a level with just their fitness and no skills." Another person spoke, commenting on the first person's words.
It wasn't that they were wishing Kishio bad or against it, it's just, no one who has attempted this old man's game had ever tried completing it by just their body fitness. Quite contradictory, some of the people watching were scouts for various clans and depending on Kishio's performance, they planned to recruit him to their clans.
Soon Kishio made it into the last ten seconds under the watchful eyes of everyone, his moves, steps and decisions all precise, leaving no flaws for the bugs to take advantage of.
Suddenly bugs rushed into the container numbering in about a hundred at once, Kishio was taken aback, but he knew he had to push himself to the max, his eyes darted around looking for a leverage to take advantage, he just had to avoid the bugs.
"If he doesn't use a skill, it's going to end like this" the people watching in the crowd were a bit anxious, no one commented but they knew the words spoken by whoever said them were right.
They had all watched Kishio's astounding performance and they internally hoped he did well.
Yue held her two hands together as in begging to the gods, her round eyes looked at Kishio while her thoughts were constantly chanting his name, right now she wasn't looking at him as if was playing a game to win her enhancement locks, but as if he was against the whole world for her sake.
"That power of yours, it eats you up right. You can feel it too, but your kogami softens the bite. Learn to control your power, or it'll end up consuming you and wasteful in your hand. You've barely scratched the surface of what wither can become, you have no idea what potential you hold in your hands." Kishio heard Uragami's ghost-like voice in his head.
Motivation? provocation?
He didn't know what Uragami wanted, but he knew one thing, if he didn't fight, he would lose, if he didn't get how to control his power, he would lose.
His mind became lighter and cooler confronting this thoughts, he recalled when he had used wither on the table, he had received a minimal amount of energy back, the black coat returned an amount of energy back to the user, thinking about all these, maybe he was expending more energy than needed, hence why the coat returned only the amount he needed, or the item he had used it on just had a very low lifeforce…
'What's he doing…giving up so easily?' Some of the people watching thought to themselves as their hopes for Kishio slowly dashed and a look of disappointment slowly creeped onto their face.
The people that had their eyes on Kishio planning on recruiting him were more disappointed, some already on the verge of leaving, but what happened next left them shocked with mouths slightly agape.
Kishio let out a sigh as he stood still, if he could use wither on his hands, could he extend its use to other parts of his body, or even better use it on a wide scale outside his body.
Of course, if it was before he would have never attempted such, fear of the energy consumption, but now…
Dark smoke-like aura began to seep out of his body covering a range of about ten metres, the bugs that entered that range seemed to travel forward for a while before collapsing in front of Kishio, the aura kept spreading a bit.
"Death aura" Kishio mumbled lightly, seemingly already naming the skill.
Soon the smoke-like aura stopped spreading as it covered a range of twenty metres, Kishio believed it could continue but he left it as it was since the bugs were locked on him, he saw no point in covering the entire glass container.
He could feel his kogami absorbing the energy of the bugs to keep supplying death aura, but he was a bit confused, when he killed the bugs before without death powers, they simply turned into a puff of smoke, but now using death powers, their bodies dropped to the floor, although with the power of wither being used as an AOE skill it consumed the body of the bugs so others wouldn't find anything out of the normal, Kishio knew either ways that something was up.
Soon all the bugs had perished before the ten seconds timer had even ended, the shop was silent as everyone in the crowd simply nodded their heads in satisfaction, they could tell, if the man inside was trained under a high clan, he could become a notable figure.
Outside the glass container, the old man's eyes widened in surprise. 'He can kill the bugs.' He had an ability similar to necromancy, but it was quite different hence his surprise. He hadn't met someone with the ability to kill creatures under his control.
His parasite's powers were special akin to selling one's soul to him, the beings under his control were of course alive making it quite different from necromancy, they could still think and had a mind of their own but they were under a proxy command; they had no control over their own actions, even if they died he could always respawn them with a bit of his energy.
The cons were if the beings could grow strong enough, they could break the seal placed on them and escape his control, hence the use of his power was not guaranteed to work on strong creatures unless they were severely weakened.
The old man was clearly surprised, people that had the ability to make him lose connections with his marked beings were too few, as a matter of fact, he had never met anyone, the young man in the glass container was the first.
If it was a stronger beast he was lost just like that he might have been angered as finding so many creatures was tasking, but the bugs were just low leveled so he still had a cool head, either ways, his interest in the young man overshadowed the loss of the bugs.
'Is master here?' the old man heard his parasite's voice in his head, but it sounded like mumbles so he failed to catch what his parasite had said.
'Let me raise the difficulty' the old man thought to himself, he had a few thousand bugs under his control so the thought of letting go of a few hundreds was trivial, he had bought the bugs from a merchant who sold dungeon beasts alive, although illegal, who cared.
The bugs in the first round were E-ranked beasts, although he didn't give them the command to attack, he chose to raise the level.
"The bugs are under the old man's control" Kishio heard Uragami say, confirming part of his suspicion.
"But could that be Igi's powers?" Uragami mumbled.
"Who's Igi?" Kishio asked, his curiosity piqued.