Nightmares Paradise [LITRPG System Integration]

Theodore activated eight abilities all at once, his six Mana Cores surging with an explosive amount of spiritual energy. The blonde-haired man had aimed at obtaining abilities that could be used outside of combat, in addition to ones that did not require chants in order to be cast.

Of all the abilities that he had just activated, only the [False Knowledge Art; Information Teleportation] required him to chant, being completed the exact moment Jon completed his own.

At Mortality, his Fragment Of Teleportation was only able to displace knowledge from one point to another. It could be used offensively, flooding his opponents mind with a sudden burst of knowledge natured spiritual energy, preventing them from collecting their thoughts and stunning them for a short duration.

At Knighthood, he was able to displace himself by converting most of his body into spiritual energy by integrating a Fragment Of Body into the Spell.

The process was near-automatic thanks to an unexpected synergy with his Fragment Of Transformation, which transformed his cells into a combination of living heat, ash, and fire natured spiritual energy.

[Half-Fire Transformation; Sun-Incineration Titan] was born after combining his Fragment Of Transformation with a Fragment Of Titan. The end result was a Fragment Of The Golden Sun Titan, which increased his physical strength, endurance, and stamina several fold at the cost of his agility and ability to use either one of his weapon summons.

When used in tandem with the Life-Protection Aegis, his physical defences were beyond extraordinary. Above average, even for a Second-Honoured Knight, according to Itsumade.

Theodore was still surprised that a Mortal was able to keep up with him, even one with a Memento Source Fragment.

He did not think for a moment that this "Jon" would be able to pierce through his defences, given how much spiritual energy he had poured into each of his abilities. The expanded spiritual energy reserves of a Knight were five times as much as an ordinary Mortal.

At least when comparing two Mana Cores without an ability that expands their natural capacity.

His eyes widened the exact moment one of Jon's thirty-foot long spear-constructs pierced through Arimathea; Life Protection Aegis. There was a faint trembling in the Fragment Of Aegis as it resisted one of Jon's constructs, shattering the approaching phantom spear construct.

Before being struck again moments later, shattering under the immense force of over a dozen thirty-foot-long replications of the Thulian Spellspear. More than half were required to break the Knight Ranked defences of Arimathea, but five still remained, launching forward towards Theodore's titanic physique.

Three of them punched through his expanded upper body, sending flame-like blood spraying out onto the ground behind him. The ash, heat, and fire natured spiritual energy that Theodore had transformed himself into remained in his current position for half-a-second before the effects of his Fragment Of Teleportation activated, shifting him several dozen feet away.

Behind the figure of the Quiet Death Of Light And Virtue.

The sounds of his screaming voice echoed into the night as Jon's spear constructs collided with the ground behind where Theodore once stood. Broken pieces of the Life Protection Aegis laid scattered about before being swallowed in a pink-silver explosion of spear natured spiritual energy.

A miniature mushroom cloud of ash, dirt and spiritual energy kicked up into the air, knocking over several small trees and incinerating a handful of mortal bushes around the point of impact. The blast caused Jon's hair to violently whip backwards, fluttering crazily as his vision was obscured with ash and debris.

The sound of his explosion rocked the forest, sending tremors coursing through the ground.

Several dozen kilometres away, hundreds of humanoids awoke to the familiar sounds of an explosion, scrambling to look out from their homes and spiritual constructs. Each of them peering out into the darkness and observing the small cloud of ash growing in the distance.

A certain indomitus shastasaurus stirred, opening his eyes for a moment before closing them, recognizing the presence of a certain human's spiritual energy.

Both Schwarz Eis and Itsumade paused their bout, as a wave of dust and earth brushed past them both, obscuring their vision and causing their ears to ring. Itsumade in particular relied on sound to perceive objects around himself, disengaging from Schwarz Eis, while relying on Kagami, Kagami to obscure himself from her senses.

The Quiet Death Of Life And Virtue turned its head in the direction where Theodore stood once moments ago, narrowing his brows at the destruction that Jon had caused. The blood-night acerodon's ears twitched, glancing at Theodore's figure behind him grimacing as he felt nothing but pain bleed over from their mental connection.

'Theodore… lost? To a Mortal?' Itsumade grimaced glancing between the woman he had gripped in his claws and Theodore's figure, still half-transformed into a sun-incineration titan.

His figure leaked blood of golden-red, containing the echoes of concepts possessed by titans and their spawn. If it were not for the fact that Theodore had transformed himself into his half-titan state, he would have been killed instantly, either his brain or heart pierced by the Fragment Of Eradication.

Turning his head half towards his opponent, the blood-night acerodon could see that the winter demon spirit had returned to her masters side, enveloping him in several protective layers of ice barriers. The presence of numerous different concepts saturated his heart, marrow, and eyes, but Itsumade thought he could detect several other mutations emanating from the primate.

'Mutation based Title, combined with multiple offensive systems of combat. A complete set of universal fragments. At least two different incarnations. Two different stance-based techniques and enough physical enhancements to match that of an average Knight.'

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'He must possess several abilities with the Mutation Trait for his physical enhancements to match that of a Knight. How annoying…'

Itsumade let out a small tsk, noticing that Theodore had reversed his transformation.

The Quiet Death Of Light And Virtue immediately using [Shared Blood] to share his own natural recovery rate with his summoner. Although he did not possess abilities related to his natural regenerations, his inherent characteristics granted him a natural recovery rate which exceeded average individuals of the same Rank.

[Shared Blood]: Manifests a connection of lifeforce between oneself and a willing target. Recovery rate is transferred to the opposing party based on how injured or wounded they are.

'I told him to integrate fragments with more offensive concepts, but of course he had to disagree with me! If that idiot just let me integrate the fragment that I originally wanted to then-' Lifting his head, Itsumade detected the presence of approaching sources of spiritual energy. Not a single one of them exceeded Knighthood, but their combined number was almost a dozen.

The Fragment Of Bat peered at his summoner before shaking his head and deciding his next action without consulting his summoner. Regardless of the consequences later on, Theodore was in no condition to continue fighting.

Having someone as dangerous as "Jon" wandering around the System Introduction would put Theodore on his toes, especially upon his ascension to Knighthood. Although conversely, it would push the Murder Of Temperance And Humility to train harder and grow even stronger knowing that there was someone better and stronger than him in the System Introduction.

Throwing the green-haired woman in his arms in a random direction, Itsumade flapped his enormous wings and approached Theodore with a surprising amount of gentleness. Scooping up his summoner in both claws, the Fragment Of Bat took to the skies, ignoring the shouts of the approaching humanoids beneath him.

Taking one last glance behind him, Itsumade observed the inverted cage of ice, gnashing his teeth as he burned the image of Schwarz Eis' face into his mind. The blood-night acerodon using all the spiritual energy contained within his Darkness Mana Core to obscure his presence from the senses of approaching Mortals or summoned companions.

In this moment, his most important goal was get Theodore to safety.

Even if he did want to devour the innards of that ice demon spirit.

Break.

Aerilayna Laedrum sprinted through the forest, not bothering to wait for her companions behind her. The swiftness of her stride was amongst the greatest of her Safe Zone, something she took pride in even before the System Introduction.

The effects of her Title, Centurion Of The Ice-Wind did not disappoint in either, increasing the effectiveness of all her abilities with the Wind Trait and Ice Trait. Despite how limiting the effects of her Title were, the twelve abilities she had across her Ice Mana Core and Wind Mana Core experienced a surge in strength that exceeded almost everyone else around her.

Each one of her footfalls left nothing more than a soft melodic trill as she raced through the underbrush. Fallen trees and patches of poisonous flowers did nothing as her Mortal Ranked Floating Boots reduced her weight enough to literally glide over a dozen metres without worry.

Her Fragment Of Eyes guiding the way and her speed enhanced through the effects of a Fragment Of Acceleration.

The sound of the battle in the distance had no doubt awoken everyone back at camp. Her group was lucky enough to be a few hundred metres away from the source of the explosion but argued against investigating further worrying about the possibility of encountering another Knight Ranked denizen of the small realm.

'Where is your sense of adventure!?' She countered, watching as her fellow lutin showed varying expressions of reservation and hesitation across their faces.

Although there was always the possibility of encountering a Knight within the System Introduction, what would happen if they discovered another Dungeon!? Or even a Wonder!?

They might be receive powerful Title Fragments as rewards or even Wonder Fragments or Memento Source Fragments!

Her eyes glistened with the possibilities!

She was certain that Delila, Amadeus and Maliq were organizing search parties to explore the areas surrounding the Safe Zone. Even so as to just reassure their creationists, or to prevent panic from gripping the other humans, satanas, appaloscians, floresiensis, vermitons, and drus.

Aerilayna was sure that she had felt the presence of a Memento Source Fragment somewhere in distance. The fact that an explosion had occurred minutes after detecting the formation of a Memento Source Item caused her to overload her Fragment Of Acceleration, urging more and more wind natured spiritual energy into her abilities.

Manifesting the Winds First Labour, the blonde-haired lutin activated her Fragment Of Concealment, allowing a thin-layer of night natured spiritual energy to envelop her figure from head-to-toe.

Her Fragment Of Stalk activated just as her Fragment Of Acceleration finished, increasing the effectiveness of all of her senses. The Technique forced her to adopt an unfamiliar stance, one whose philosophies and movements with which she did not quite fully agree.

The earth around her was loose. The scent of dirt and ash heavy on her nose.

Alcides, manifested from a Fragment Of Bow integrated into a Wind Mana Core was brought up towards her chest, bowstring in hand as she stalked through the leaves and shrubs, approaching the source of the explosion.

She could still feel the lingering traces of fire natured spiritual energy all around her, alongside the subtle emanations of ice natured spiritual energy and blood natured spiritual energy.

These were amongst the most common types of Mana Cores integrated in their Safe Zone. Although there were several other flavours of spiritual energy whose exact nature she could not identify having not felt such spiritual energy before.

Aerilayna took several steps forward, pausing after noticing an incredibly deep crater several metres away from her. More than a dozen trees of varying size and species had been knocked onto their side, some still burning after being exposed to fire natured spiritual energy.

The crater was so deep that Aerilayna was sure it stretched at least ten metres deep. Some sharp, but unknown type of spiritual energy clinging to the sides of the crater, preventing the earth around it from collapsing and filling the enormous hole.

A tree over three metres in diameter had been severed with a near-machine like precision. Running her finger along the tree stump caused her to wince, noticing that just running her finger along its flat surface had given her a miniscule cut.

Lifting her head, Aerilayna let out a short but shallow breath.

'What in the world happened here?' she wondered to herself.

'Who… or what rather, fought here?'

Aerilayna turned her head, raising her guard after seeing a shadow flash in the distance.

Shivers crept down her spine, prompting her to manifest her Fragment Of Greaves around her shins and Fragment Of Vambrace around her forearms. The Nights Ninth Labour and Songs Thirteen Labour appearing with nothing but a thought.

For a moment, she thought that she had seen someone smile at her, revealing a mouth with far too many teeth through the darkness.

'And, have those responsible for this mess left the area yet-.' Her lithe figure turning around and shooting an arrow off into the distance, illuminating the forest around where the arrow had travelled.

A gust of wind brushed past her, alongside a burst of ice natured spiritual energy.

Even with her Diana-Windless Eyes, Aerilayna could barely catch a glimpse of this figure before feeling the pointed tip of a spear press softly against her throat. Her expression paling as golden-green coloured eyes stared back at her, piercing through the thinly-veiled defences of her Fragment Of Mind.

A flash of pain sprouted from her temples before an unfamiliar man's voice echoed throughout the ruined forest. Despite his accent and appearance, the man spoke in almost perfect Nain.

"Are you with Theodore?"