章 21: Dark Earth Armor

Seeing the gorilla's bloodline power on his status page, Blake cheered inwardly as it meant that his own bloodline power had worked without fail.

'Let's try this out right now.' Blake thought before pouring nether from within his body into the new demonic runes on the middle of his chest.

Just like when he activated his own bloodline power, Blake didn't need to do anything else other than giving the demonic runes the nether from his body before the runes glowed on their own.

And just like what he had expected, the moment the runes that he got from the gorilla started glowing, rocks started appearing on the surface of his body starting from his chest.

The shape of the rocks looked practically the same as the rocks he had seen appearing on the two gorillas before. However, different from the two gorillas, the rocks that appeared on Blake's body were almost pure black in color, with only a faint tinge of brown could be found after squinting his eyes to see closer to the rock armor.

With Blake's current body that still wasn't as huge as a bodybuilder, but rather looked extremely fit like a calisthenics athlete, the black rock armor also followed the outline of his body and produced a compact and aerodynamic-looking armor that was different from the bulky, heavy-armor that formed on the gorilla's body.

After the armor finished forming itself, Blake stayed in place for a second as he took a better look at himself to see the full body armor that appeared on his body.

'Hmm… I guess Vera was correct. If the darkness affinity is high, then it means their compatibility with nether would also be high. I thought I would be getting the partial body armor from Robus since he only had partial body armor before, but I guess my high darkness affinity was also boosting the earth affinity so that I could have a full body armor.'

'But it seems that it wasn't literally the same earth armor as before…' Blake thought to himself as he saw the significantly darker color of the armor that was almost all black compared to the dark brown armor that he had seen earlier. But remembering the skill's name and description in his status page,

'(Earth Ape Demon) Dark Earth Armor

A variation of earth armor that had received a massive amount of darkness element. On top of the ordinary protection you get from the original earth armor, the darkness element would also enhance the defensive capability by absorbing some of the elements that were thrown into the armor to reinforce itself.'

Blake nodded in understanding as the body armor that he was currently wearing right now was most likely dark earth armor instead of the ordinary earth armor that the gorillas used before. Hence the difference in color.

'But I wonder…'

Blake then tried moving his body which was literally covered by rocks from head to toe except for the front of his face. He expected his movements would be greatly impeded by the heavy weight of the rocks since just from looking at them, he was sure that they looked hefty, but when he actually moved his limbs, Blake didn't feel any difference from his former movement.

'Is this because of the empowering feeling in my body that I felt earlier when I just received the gorilla's runes or is this because that's just how the earth armor works?'

He still remembered the fact that the muscles on his body had developed to a certain extent and his skin had become tougher the moment after the gorilla's runes appeared on his body, and remembering that both Robus and the other gorilla's speed also didn't decrease when they fought with the earth armor earlier, Blake concluded that it might have been a mix of both that he was able to move around just fine even with the bulky dark earth armor covering his body.

And with that newfound power, of course, Blake would test it out first by punching woods and rocks, imitating the ancient Shaolin movies that he watched back on earth.

Blake walked over a tree and casually punched it without any forms or anything like that, only depending on his raw strength and his dark earth armor. And the result was far from disappointing.

Although Blake couldn't chop down the tree with a single punch, he made a sizable crack on the tree's body with his hands being completely protected by the dark earth armor and not even feeling a thing when cracking the thick and tall tree.

He always thought what the shaolins could achieve just by punching things thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of times repeatedly and something called qi or inner body strength was awesome, and he was even tempted to learn it himself once because he couldn't use any mana. But the reality is often disappointing as he couldn't find any legit-looking Shaolin temples that teach real authentic Shaolin teachings.

He was even devastated when he found out some of the so-called Shaolin temples used mana instead of qi or inner strength to achieve breaking concrete or boulders with their bare hands.

But now that he literally had a rock for hand without even training anything, he fell in love even more with the nether, the demonic runes, and the demon's bloodline power.

While Blake was recementing his love for his new life as a demon, Robus, the gorilla that had made the covenant with Blake, was also looking at his own body that felt familiar yet different at the same time.

The first most noticeable difference was that his fur and skin had turned several shades darker and his body which was full of wounds before had been completely healed after the new demonic runes had appeared around his original runes in the middle of his body.

Different from Blake that had the runes on his body visible at all times, the runes on Robus' body were covered beneath his thick fur and the runes would only become visible after he poured in his nether into it, but still, he was still able to feel the changes happening since the moment the new runes were drawn onto his body, Robus could feel a change deep inside his body.

Other than he felt a connection with the humanoid demon in front of him, which he suddenly knew the name of, he also felt the nether in his body increase its presence as if it had risen up in quality several times compared to before. And additionally, when Robus tried to move his nether to his runes, he felt it had become much, much easier than before.

Before, when he tried to activate his bloodline power, Robus would feel like he had to push a large boulder from his heart to the middle of his chest, but now, he didn't even need to try, he just thought of moving his nether, and the nether moved on their own following his command.

The realization had finally seeped into him that he had indeed gotten stronger, and along with that, a certain feeling was appearing in his heart. Robus didn't know what it was since it was rare for him to even think of something abstract such as a feeling, but the moment he heard Blake's words, he knew what that feeling was.

"So, are you ready to take your revenge?"

"ROARR!!"