I Hate Systems

"You…bastards…Kuak!" Eldna cursed as she convulsed on the floor, writhing in pain as mysterious wormy creatures began to form in her stomach, squirming around to the extent her stomach enlarged to dangerous levels.

And as the stomach was the organ where all the essence that someone from the Essencer Guild absorbs is stored, the worms were directly feeding at the source of her strength. "No!"

She screeched in pain and tried to unleash lightning bolts to kill them. Unfortunately, the drug circulating through her body prevented her from even concentrating enough to wield that.

It wasn't easy for a normal human to wield faith. The hooded man was aware of it from experience, as it was through the shadows that he even lived. A minimal amount of concentration was necessary to employ the power of faith.

And the drug he put in her prevented that. Every time Eldna tried to concentrate, her mind got distracted, causing her focus to dissipate, preventing her usage of faith. After the first few moments, she was unable to harness the absorbed lifeforce too.

As time passed, she became more and more helpless, watching in alarm as her stomach expanded like she was pregnant, bearing a child six to seven months into pregnancy.

"I…I surrender! Please, save me!" She pleaded at the end, unable to bear the pain as everything she had stored in her stomach was fully consumed by the worms.

"What's the plan?" The Apostle of the God of Rain stared at the hooded man, "Are you going to kill her now?"

"Not yet," The hooded man said, "The worms I put in her are somewhat special. Let them first consume every speck of faith in her body."

"And then?" The Apostle asked.

"You'll see," The hooded man didn't say anything else and calmly watched Eldna writhe around in pain. Her body was numb from the drug, and hence she couldn't even move to offer resistance.

Time passed in such a manner as the worms finished devouring all faith in her stomach. Following that, they squirmed for a few minutes before reaching the end of their lifespan, dying one after another.

At this moment, the hooded man arrived before her and kneeled, extended his hand as on the end of his index finger, a shadowy tentacle crept and transformed into a scalpel. Using that, he made an incision on her belly and pulled out the stomach organ.

Eldna screamed in pain when suddenly, a beastly jaw of shadow came out of his body and swallowed the stomach organ. It then retreated into his body as the shadow formed countless nerves that attached to the stomach organ, quickly beginning to circulate his blood through it.

Yes, he didn't even have a stomach and had been subsisting with a replica he made using his shadow. Of course, he had to consume hydrochloric acid and other substances secreted by the stomach in order to maintain his digestion process.

The Symbol of Authority of Essencer—the Devil worshipped by the Essencer Guild—was the stomach. The Tool of Authority was the mouth while the Mode of Bestowal was hair.

Everyone from the Essencer Guild had their bodies modified by the Essencer, with the symbol of authority blessed into them to make their stomachs capable of storing in the stolen faiths.

Of course, without gaining Essencer's power, they couldn't steal the faith and essence of others. But if they couldn't store the same without retaining Essencer's power, it would be a loss. And hence, everyone from the Essencer Guild gained the innate blessing that morphed their stomachs.

Of course, the stomachs of a regular believer and a Spirit were vastly different. The hooded man had been experimenting on them in order to weaponize their stomachs.

The previous Spirit gave a lot of valuable data. But unfortunately, the hooded man's worms tore through that Spirit's stomach. And hence, he couldn't use it for himself and could only run experiments on it.

That was why he made some changes to the current batch of worms and ensured they wouldn't devour Eldna's stomach. Moreover, it was unknown how she did it, but Eldna had stolen some faith directly from the God of Humanity.

When he sensed it first, the hooded man was stunned, raging even. But immediately after, he began to plan accordingly, which led to the current sequence of events.

As she wasn't dead yet, Essencer hadn't reclaimed the power of Spirit granted to Eldna. Using that chance, the hooded man stole her stomach and made it his as his shadows invaded the organ.

The concentrated faith of the God of Humanity within had already been consumed by the worms. But once they died, their remains were coated with that power. They had a mild deific nature to them.

And as the stomach began to digest them, this substance was mixed into his blood, causing the hooded man to grunt as his body felt like it would explode any moment.

The residual power of Essencer, God of Humanity, God of Rain, and Peddler—the Devil controlling the unscrupulous merchants—circulated in his body.

The shadows acting as the blood vessels felt strained in response as his mind too felt drained. But at this moment, he clapped loudly, praying, 'Show me the way to stabilise this!'

Boom!

Immediately, a torrent of information poured into his mind, accompanied by experiences of all sorts. The Aggressors were a fanatic bunch, with none having any regard for their lives. They were all like the hooded man, living on borrowed time, with the sole goal of killing Devils or any existences that they hated.

A member of the Essencer Guild had replaced the hooded man's father and slaughtered his family. He too was almost killed, but right before he could be absorbed, priests of a nearby faith rushed to the scene. That member had to leave in a hurry, and hence he survived.

Following that, he prayed to the God of Humanity and gained power, using his shadow to replace his lost organs and body parts, living on borrowed time to exact vengeance on the Essencer Guild.

So, he didn't care about his well-being and only wished to gain enough power to slaughter the Essencer Guild. The information influx was an alarming sum, enough to make a regular person mad.

"Haah!" The hooded man simply shouted in response, insane from the start as he let go of everything and only focused on his mission, rapidly acclimating to all the experiences gained by Aggressors that had similarly experimented.

And using that, he manipulated his shadow, causing the residual effects of the God of Rain to be absorbed into the shadow nerves like a cloth absorbing rain. Following that, it became similar to a wet cloth that coiled around the residual effects of the Peddler, forming a space within that unleashed a force of vacuum, absorbing the residual effects of Essencer.

His blood vessels became similar to the worms he had created, almost microscopic in size as they circulated through his body like blood, becoming a weapon that he could use to kill those from the Essencer Guild with greater ease.