The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) by Craig Kobayashi (ereader android TXT) 📕

a direct line of sight to the back door, Garath figured. Was the timing of the unexpected friend request coincidental? Did that mean that remaining in crow form could still provide him with the advantage of surprise?

Staying high in the air and out of sight, Garath flew to the location noted on his map and closed his panels. Once he was directly above the green dot on the map, he tucked his wings and dove as fast as he could. As he neared the ground, his target came into view.

Leviathan was standing alone on a cliff edge overlooking the Pacific. A dark figure was all Garath could make out as he approached from above and behind the enemy Necrologist. A slender figure, with shapely hips and long, dark hair. Leviathan's face came into view and Garath spread his wings to slow his dive.

‘Leviathan is a girl?’

Chapter 35

Vengeance

Something wasn't right. Garath felt that in the back of his mind but he couldn't quite place it. The obviously female form he was crashing down on was huge, easily over six feet tall. She didn't recoil in the slightest as Garath reached her and released the instant cast of Blight. Dark purple energy shot out from his crow form and found purchase on not one, but two targets. The first was the tall female Garath had assumed was Leviathan, the second seemed to take hold on a bush only a few feet away. The tall female form vanished into blackness like wisps of smoke from a blown out candle. He spread his wings wide to end the dive and gain altitude again.

Luckily, Garath had kept his combat log settings on ‘enabled: foreground’ and was able to piece together what had just happened with a little light reading as he flew higher and out of range of a potential retaliatory Death Bolt. His Blight had indeed infected Leviathan, the combat log made that much clear. The damage-over-time on the enemy Necrologist was even increased due to a 300% damage multiplier for her current form size (Diminutive). The combat log even specified his enemy's form, a rat. The log also showed that he had infected a Shadow Puppet with Blight.

‘Wait, Shadow Puppet?’ Garath thought, leveling out over a hundred yards above his target. He wondered if the puppet was a Necrologist Skill he hadn't unlocked yet.

Leviathan was in rat form taking an insane amount of damage from Blight. Garath himself was taking a good amount of damage from her Plague with the 150% increase for his 'Tiny' crow form. Neither of them would benefit much from remaining in a beast form for this fight and they both knew it.

Based on what he was seeing from the scrolling combat log, he was definitely in a better position to remain shape-shifted than Leviathan was. He activated his own Plague to up the DoT slowly killing his enemy and force her out of the diminutive form. An unseen aura spread in a one-hundred-meter circumference around him. Without seeing it happen or even reading its effects on the scrolling combat log, Garath knew Leviathan was infected with his Plague.

He now understood why she had said that people taking damage from her Plague felt so good. Even with just one sentient enemy infected by his Plague, Garath felt nearly overwhelmed by the euphoria filling his mind like an overflowing tankard of ale. It was nothing like the feeling he got from infecting the Naga a few hours prior.

Garath dove again, this time in hopes of catching a glimpse of a scurrying rat. He was not left wanting. A large rat with gangly limbs exited the bush and blurred into a much larger form, her natural human form. As soon as the nameplate came into view from her hiding place, Garath triggered Inspect. Since she was now on his Friend list, her entire Profile panel was revealed.

Leviathan

Race: Human

Class: Necrologist

Level: 31

Age: 17

Health: 435/990

Stamina: 98/100

Mana: 1,450/1,790

Attributes

Vitality: 99 - Each point of Vitality provides +10 to maximum Health.

Wisdom: 179 - Each point of Wisdom provides +10 to maximum Mana.

Regeneration: 43 - As a Necrologist, each point of Regeneration increases Mana recovery rate by +1.11 per second; Health recovery rate by +.25 per second; and recovery from injury by +2%.

Strength: 5 - In addition to making one stronger, each point of Strength increases physical attack damage by 1% and reduces damage received from physical attacks by .25%.

Dexterity: 5 - In addition to making one more agile, each point of Dexterity improves the critical strike chance of physical attacks by +.3%; the critical strike damage of physical attacks by +3%; and improves chance to dodge by +.5%.

Garath was stunned. Leviathan, this wild murderer, was a seventeen-year-old girl? Just a kid. By the looks of it, this child had invested every Attribute point she had received for over 30 Levels into Wisdom and Regeneration. This was concerning to Garath because if she stayed in human form and only took the regular, 100% damage from his spells, her Regeneration stat of 63 would counter a great deal of the damage his poison spells would deal. Luckily, killing his enemies from a distance with DoT spells was not his only means of dealing death. As he finished reading his enemy's Profile page it disappeared and a new prompt clouded his vision.

Leviathan has ended your friendship. You will no longer share the benefits of friendship.

Garath would have laughed out loud, had he been in human form. The Necrologist knew he was taking a net damage-per-second of 6 in crow form - the 150% increased damage from Plague to his “tiny” form, less the 30 HP he restored per second via his Regeneration Attribute. With his total of 913 HP (still bolstered by the %10 increase from the Naga Trident’s buff), the net damage of six per second would finish him off in around two and a half minutes. But that was just the bad news.

The good news was that his Plague