Agent of Seraphim-Chapter 60: Weapon Morphing

Brand glanced at Seraphine and the chibi Ifrit, noticing the stealthy looks they’d been exchanging. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

"Is there anything you’re hiding?" he asked Seraphine. He was dumbfounded when she started whistling, deliberately avoiding his eyes.

’Not telling me, huh?’

Even the flame spirit beast avoided his gaze, which was rare.

"You know what they’re talking about?" He asked Ruby if she had heard anything from Ifrit, but she hadn’t heard anything either.

While they were still walking towards the chamber with the altar that he sensed, multiple monsters emerged from the shadows.

[Skeleton - Lv 15]

[Skeleton Guard - Lv 18]

’The levels of the skeletons were getting higher?’

Even then, it was still not hard for him to kill the skeletons.

Without using the Scarab Shell, he morphed his arm into a blade, relying solely on the Cyborg Arm’s ability.

The skill had a variety of uses, but it had one limitation. It was that the weapon was formed by transforming his own arm.

This gave him a shorter reach and lacked the familiar feel of wielding an actual weapon. His arm itself was the weapon.

There was another drawback. He received no bonus damage or attributes from weapon stats.

Unlike Karl’s Thundra Spear, which acted as a true extension of its wielder and allowed skill usage unique to the weapon, Brand’s Cyborg Arm offered none of those advantages.

For Brand, any weapon formed through the Cyborg Arm behaved like a claw weapon, whether it was the needle-arm or the pincer-arm.

Brand dashed toward the skeletons and struck them with his energy-charged blade.

Empowered by the gathered energy, his attacks easily destroyed the skeletons, even though they were higher level than the demon worms. He didn’t hold back in using his energy, knowing he could simply replenish it by ’Consuming’ the creatures’ corpses.

Curious, he continued to test whether he could morph his weapon into different forms. The next weapon he attempted was a spear.

Disappointingly, his hand elongated and became thinner, with a spearhead forming at the tip.

However, the spear was incompatible with his Cyborg Arm’s weapon morph. It was difficult for him to navigate a long weapon, and he couldn’t exert force effectively.

He began to understand the limitations of his skills, but he realized that he should focus on its strengths.

’The Cyborg Arm could integrate with my other Forms from various skills, and even tailor unique skills according to their traits’

’So technically, the weapons are still my arms, just like the blade-arm I’m using now.’

"Phantom slash!"

He unleashed a sword storm, the same skill he had derived from mimicking Lena’s Phantom Thrust. Multiple slashes erupted in rapid succession, sending a whirlwind of blades toward the skeleton mobs.

The sword storm swept past the skeletons, rendering them unmovable, bones shattered.

Ruby then finished it up by unleashing fireballs onto the skeletons.

"Not bad." Brand raised his hand for a high five. Ruby hesitated for a moment, but followed through with his movement.

The sound of their hands meeting echoed softly in the tunnel. Ruby’s eyes widened in surprise at the gesture, and she blushed, a faint redness blooming across her cheeks.

"This is how we celebrate, where I come from," he explained. He had been talking to her a lot during their journey through the tunnel, sharing little pieces of himself.

She already knew he wasn’t really Brand Essen, that he was just borrowing the identity. Since she also learned about Seraphine from her spirit beast.

He briefly told her that Seraphine was the one who had brought him here from his hometown. He didn’t mention that he was from another world yet, but only that he had come from a distant place.

"I’ll tell you more about it after we get through the ruin." He made a promise to Ruby. She accepted the proposition, as they were busying with the exploration.

She softened considerably after the release of her constraint on Ifrit, and also after hearing from him directly that he was not Essen.

’I’m sure she had suspected it already, after checking the name engraved in the shield was my name, and not her friend’s.’

"I can still talk to you directly without letting the cat hear, you know?" Seraphine giggled.

’Yeah, yeah... you’re amazing...’

He didn’t bother responding to the little angel. In his defence, she never really expected an answer anyway. She simply enjoyed teasing him now and then.

"But what were you talking about earlier? With Ifrit, I mean," he asked, basically probing for what they were hiding.

"Hmm, let’s just call it a lesson for you two kids," Seraphine teased.

’Seraphine would not do anything which would harm me directly, because I still needed to find God’s Artifact.’

He understood his value to Seraphim, who had sent him to this world, with Seraphine as his guide.

’It’s fine. I’m sure I can overcome the challenges.’

He was already familiar with the logic and laws of this world. He gained the experience through sweat and blood, of course.

After a few hundred more steps, they reached the end of the tunnel.

What greeted them was a wide chamber with an altar at its center, surrounded by countless worms. The wriggling worms came to a stop as they realised Ruby and he were staring.

As soon as Brand stepped into the chamber, the worms let out a loud, shrieking sound, clearly agitated. Just as they launched their attack, Brand felt the air shaking from behind.

Something was approaching him at high speed! He snapped out a finger of his quickly and transformed it into a beetle, commanding it to locate the source of the disturbance.

He closed his eyes to see through the beetle’s enhanced motion sight. The image was blurry, but he saw a winged creature lunging at him, with claws extended out to strike him.

He shapeshifted his arm into a claw to intercept the winged creature’s attack.

"Oh?" he heard a young voice emerge from the creature. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain as it kicked him, sending him hurtling into the chamber filled with demon worms.