Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

BOOM!

The sparks that Fay cast all over the place suddenly activated, upsetting the aura all over the place. And as she opened her mouth, no sound came from it.

For in the very next moment, when the time finally picked up its usual pace, Fay spoke through a thunder.

"…" With her jaws pried open, Fay continued to infuse the air with her will, turning into a sea of dancing sparks and points of concentrated electric potential… That soon broke free from whatever held it back and covered the entire area in a storm of lightning.

Normally, a human could only hear the very instant of the thunder snapping and unleashing its might down to the ground.

And right here and now, with her mouth still opened up and her body leaned forward, Fay continued to hold up the electric storm, suffusing the air with enough static to make my hair start to stand up…

And to be fair, I wasn't the one who had it the worst.

Either because I stood too close to the girl or maybe simply because of our bond and how she would never do something that could hurt me, the constantly revolving, moving chains of lighting only caressed my skin, like a peaceful, calming breeze in the morning.

And just a few steps ahead…

The charge of the cavalry that I somehow missed was now gone, and the unit of fancily dressed soldiers was now in disarray.

Whenever one of them would stand up in an attempt to charge, one of the thousands of lighting bolts that orbited the girl at a both great and short distance would deviate from its path and snap at the target, instantly frying whatever body part he dared to raise first.

And the noise…

The noise was so great that I felt like my eyes were actually going to bleed. It was so loud, that I could still hear this damned noise even when I contracted temporary deafness, a desperate measure of my body to stop the degradation of my hearing.

Instead of the instant noise of the thunder snapping, this sound now continued, coming from all over the place.

Fay gathered herself up before uttering one last muted scream. And as soon as she pulled her mouth back together, the storm of endless lightning annihilating anything and everything that came in its path finally came to an end.

But the girl didn't return to her normal, human form. She didn't even revert to her ascended form either.

Fay's hair continued to float freely in the air, far longer, fluffier… with a lot more volume to it. And now that Fay leaned forward so much she nearly got on all fours, it projected a massive and strangely sturdy-looking body of a fully mature, celestial fox all over her true flesh.

I knew this was just an illusion. It had to be. No living being should be able to have two forms… simultaneously!

Regardless of what was possible or not, though, I could tell Fay was bristling, her body trembling in anticipation as her instincts went into overdrive.

And yet, rather than rushing forth to massacre anyone who managed to escape the storm she invoked, Fay suddenly started to pull herself back up.

'Wait, this has to be another evolution, just like when she turned ascended,' I thought, shaking my head to use a physical impulse to shake my mind awake before turning my attention to my system, eager to find and contemplate Fay's new stats.

Yet, the moment I finally paid attention to my system, I had no other choice but to acknowledge the insane mess it had become.

'What's with all those warnings,' I thought, pushing away all those that didn't seem to be critically important. And soon, those that were appeared before my eyes, no longer cluttered with all the smaller, less meaningful messages.

[Influx of energy hijacked]

[Foreign core seed discovered]

[Main Aura Stream Hijack procedure Blocked]

[Seed Awakening: 0%]

[Hijack procedure blocked]

[Seed Awakening: 1.3%]

Those were only the very beginning of the mess that appeared to be bigger the more I looked into the warnings.

Before long, I dug all the way to when the warnings became important and then critical warnings. To a point where everything, formerly black and white, within my system suddenly turned bloody red and started to flash.

As I continued to read through all those notifications as my heart filled with more and more unrest, I finally arrived at the last one.

[Hijack procedure blocked]

[Seed Awakening: 97.7%]

After reading through a huge chunk of my notifications, I could finally start making some sense of what was happening. And instantly, the gun in my hand suddenly started to weigh me down.

Scared, I slowly removed my finger from the trigger.

'I was so close…'

There was only one thing that progressed the awakening of the seed, regardless of what it was. After my system appeared to block the seed's access to the flow of my own mana, the seed had to latch on a different source of nutrients.

And what was a better option for it to pick than the fresh and easily digestible energy that rushed to reinforce my flesh and soul whenever I claimed a life?

I slowly gulped my saliva down.

'If I finished this guy off…'

This armor-less man was far stronger than any of his soldiers, maybe with the exception of the cavalry that Fay's sudden outburst stopped.

And judging how even a single kill was enough to push the awakening of this seed, whatever it actually was, for a solid bit…

'Is there any way to remove this foreign core thingy?' I asked myself, searching my memory through any and all clues I could find.

[Foreign Core nears the awakening: Assimilating and translating it through the system will come at a cost of current free points equal to the energy it fed on]

Answering my inner call, the system actually responded.

Maybe it considered the current situation weird and unnatural enough to give me some leeway? Or maybe it was all a part of some sort of quest I have yet to figure out?

One way or another, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, something extremely misplaced in the middle of a freaking battlefield and with my waifu bristling to go and tear our enemies apart.

I sighed a breath of relief because for once, my habit of keeping my advances for when I have the time to actually think them over, paid off. Or rather, it allowed me to dodge a massive bullet.

For right now, my most reliable way of gaining more free points was to kill other living beings and absorb part of their aura… or whatever this energy was that continued to appear out of nowhere to let me grow stronger.

In other words, if I used up even a single point from the ones I've gained in the process of this battle… I wouldn't be able to remove this core. And the moment I would try to gain more of those free points, the core would awaken as it already hijacked whatever pathways this strange energy used to assimilate into me.

'It's better not to risk it. But still, a foreign core seed?' I thought, gritting my teeth even though I've already made up my mind. 'If it's not related to my system, then how did it…'

Puff.

I hastily took a step to the back, pushed by a powerful, soft force that crashed into me. Only when Fay stood up on her toes and reached with her lips for my face did I realize it was actually her.

Not offering a single word of explanation, she claimed my lips before invading my mouth with her tongue, her hands already moving to keep my flesh in place, refusing me the right to escape.

Seconds trickled by. The human cavalry continued to gather themselves up. The force that I've nearly defeated used up this moment of opportunity to retreat and concentrate their forces around this strange, decorated cavalry that appeared out of nowhere…

And Fay did nothing but continued to make out with me, in a much wilder, desperate manner than ever before.

And bit by bit, the darkness that I've grown so used to I could no longer notice… finally started to disperse. The world grew detailed once more…

[Using up free points to assimilate and recode the foreign core seed]

The brightness of the affection burning in Fay's soul dispelled the darkness from my world. And as all sorts of different energies surged through my flesh in a complicated dance I had no business even trying to understand…

The darkness made its full retreat. Yet, it didn't vanish. It simply hid in the layer of my vision I couldn't see before.

It was still there, all over the place, hiding out in plain sight yet outside of the scope of what a normal person could ever see.

[Foreign Core Seed successfully assimilated]

[Free points: 0] > [Free points: 37] > [Free points: 0]

[Level: 48] > [Level: 87]

All the changes to my stats could be summed up with just those three lines. Yet, right as Fay's hands started to sneak under my clothes to the shock of all the celestials, divines, and humans around, I saw just one more line emerge before my eyes.

[Assimilated: Darkness Core]

[You can now channel aura through elemental darkness]

Fay's hand grabbed at my flesh… only to freeze when she felt me tensing up.

The girl pushed her chin up as she pulled her face just a little bit with a fiesty… yet weirdly restrained smile.

"What?" she asked, blush appearing all over her face.

Back a few tens of meters, the enemy finally managed to rally enough of the forces to mount a new charge.

"Nothing at all, sweetie," I whispered back to the girl while reaching out to caress her face. "You surprised me, that's all."

Sensing no repulsion or rejection in my soul nor hearing any hint of it in my voice, Fay visibly calmed down. And with the look of reluctance gone, her face gave off an animalistic, primal-like vibe.

And I could feel it. Whether it was because of her transformation, because of our bond, or because of some other reasons I couldn't figure out on the spot, I didn't know.

But right now, well within the range of my hands, Fay was bristling for some blood, her hunter's instincts awoken and now in full swing.

Her body was literally itching for a fight and with a single glance at her stats… I couldn't help but feel pity for all those poor humans.

But they were all supposed to die. That was my deal with Claudy, after all. And so…

"I know you want to hunt," I spoke only to reach out and pull Fay back into my embrace while raising my eyes and giving the charging humans a pitying look.

"Together, then," I whispered, lowering my eyelids as I immersed myself in the feeling that came along with my last system's notification. "Let's hunt them all down," I suggested, right as my consciousness fully invoked the hidden layer of darkness.

"Un!" Fay happily made a strange noise only to swing around in my arms, turning to face the charging enemies.

They were just a few meters away by now, relentlessly cutting the distance as they did their absolute best to reach the two of us.

Sparks reappeared in Fay's eyes... shining with a strangely addicting to look at, golden hue within the realm of darkness that layered itself atop my normal vision. And it was under the guidance of those sparks that I figured out what was this one last missing piece that kept me from fully comprehending this new ability of mine.

And so, as Fay's power surged forth, coursing through the space and igniting all the aura in its path, turning it into discharges of electricity... I channeled my own aura through the darkness I could see all over the place, reinforcing Fay's sparks with whatever this elemental darkness was supposed to be.

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