While fighting the kobolds, Peter kicked them back, but it didn’t amount to much. None of his skills could repel them. Not with his current stats. Even though he gained levels, which provided stat points to invest in his physical attributes, the effects weren’t immediate. Stats took time to settle. Sometimes days, weeks, even.
An area of effect skill would have been nice, He thought, deeply regretting not developing some offensive, magical skill.
Peter felt his hands tremble and his blood run cold. Fear consumed his bones. Flooding more mana into his body, he tried to bridge the stat gap through sheer mana reinforcement. But a mortal body could endure only so much. It had a limit.
After killing another mutt, Peter briefly considered luring the kobolds away, using himself as bait. That thought vanished as soon as it came. He couldn’t afford to let his mother leave the range of his Mana Sense.
‘What if some kobolds decided to check the house while I was gone?’ he thought. Her safety wasn’t something he could gamble, not like that. The risk was too high.
Moving his limbs with utmost precision, Peter kept fighting a losing battle. His gaze remained on the stairs, praying the kobolds would not split up and charge. Each minute was pushing him further from the staircase.
Peter had already killed thirty enemies when he could no longer hold the staircase. None of them cared to spare a single glance at the stairs. The monsters remained oblivious to her presence for now. Peter exhaled, lungs contracting while his heartbeat slowly steadied.
The gruelling battle continued for some more time before Peter’s world collapsed. Footsteps approached, heads turned, and Peter screamed.
…
Mariah lay on the floor, shivering. Her fingers pressed tightly against her ears, desperate to drown out the sound of the clash coming from below. Her son was down there somewhere, fighting with everything he had to protect her.
Her tears would not stop. The shivering was one thing… but the shame? The shame in her chest felt heavier than any fear. She should be protecting him. As his mother, it was her role, her duty.
Her mind echoed his words before he left. “I promise. No harm will come to you. And nothing will harm me.” She wanted to believe him. She did. But how could a ten-year-old child succeed where the entire village had failed?
Despite the tremble in her legs, she forced herself to stand. She refused to be a mother who died after her son.
I’ll create a path for him to escape, she thought. Her life could be forfeited, but her son must live. That was her duty.
With renewed determination, she reached for the door handle and twisted it open.
…
Peter’s eyes widened in horror, his body turning stone still as he heard the door creaking from upstairs. Every single kobold snapped their face upstairs, realising he was not alone.
“No!” He roared, witnessing some kobolds make a split-second decision, grin before surging upwards.
“Stop!” he shouted, “I said stop!” Blood rushed into his temples, making his vision foggy. Desperation unleashed an untapped well of power.
The pathways linking his soul to his mortal body snapped wide. For the first time, the might of his soul descended upon reality. Everyone but Peter froze, bound in their places under his will. The kobolds shivered, bearing the crushing weight of Peter’s mighty soul.
They were weak, barely above level 20. Their souls were not even a spark compared to Peter’s.
His soul was vast, a boulder on their shoulders, forcing them into kneeling positions. They didn’t just stop, but crawled out of the house entirely. Their trembling gaze never left Peter, souls surging with a primal fear. Hair standing fully, they stopped at ten meters from the house.
The standoff lasted for only a few moments before the trembling stopped, fangs once again bared at Peter. They weren’t fools. Peter’s soul still looked grand and imposing… but if he was truly as powerful as his soul made them believe, he would have killed them in seconds.
Peter had proven himself a skilled fighter, battling fiercely against the kobolds. Despite the lives claimed by his blade, he had been unable to drive them back. The kobolds knew that. He was not all-powerful.
Unable to decide on what to do, Kobolds reacted on instinct by turning their heads upwards. Their saliva-filled mouths parted open to let out a far-reaching howl. A call to their brethren.
If we couldn’t kill him by ourselves, surely greater numbers would accomplish that, they decided.
A grim expression came over Peter’s face. His fists clenched hard in hatred for these monsters, wishing death for all of them. The howl was loud and clear, causing more kobolds to gather around the house from various places in the village.
As tribal creatures, kobolds felt a growth in their confidence with growing numbers. Slowly but steadily with tiny steps, they advanced closer to the house, narrowing their encirclement. Staring at them, Peter called upon his summoning skill. He poured a total of 1900 mana points into the skill, three-fourths of his remaining mana. He called upon the world to answer his hatred and his desire to protect.
The System immediately responded to his request by opening up a blue transparent window in front of him, and a series of notifications followed.



System...



Skill’s request to act as enforcer for the summoning contract acknowledged.
Accessing requirements for the contract establishment….
Assessment completed….
Searching for suitable entities that fit the first set of requirements….
A total of 8004372 entities found….
Sorting out all the entities based on strength and potential parameters….
Removing all the entities that could overpower the user due to higher strength…
A total of 34543 entities remaining…
Assessing additional dynamic requirements….
Acknowledged the user’s requirement for the summon to have a certain desirable level of power…
Assessment completed…
Sorting out all the entities that do not meet the desirable level of power….
A total of 1023 entities remaining…
Sending out a request to form a summoning contract….
Awaiting response….




 
Peter waited with an impatient expression, staring at the growing horde with murder in his eyes. His soul no longer proved to be an effective deterrent.
In various planes of existence, many entities stopped in their tracks as they received the terms of conditions personally offered by the system into their brains. Some were elemental spirits, others non-sapient creatures. Each of them had desires. Demands for the contract.
Most sought Peter's help in advancing to a higher tier, but some had bizarre requirements. Some demanded a piece of his soul, and a few wanted blood sacrifices. One of them wanted him to find an ideal mate for it.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.



System...



Receiving responses from the willing entities…
A total of 207 entities had shown willingness to sign a contract based on the conditions…
Filtering based on compatibility and contract viability…
Warning… The user’s emotional state might influence the summoning parameter…




 
Peter scoffed. He didn’t care. Let it be influenced. As long as he could kill these pests, he would be satisfied.



System...



Checking affinity alignment between the user’s emotional state and responding entities…
Removing all the entities that desire harm towards the user in exchange for the contract…
Sending the most compatible entity contract…
Response received…
The entity requires a sacrifice for the summoning contract…




 
Peter’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the final message. Turning toward the army of monsters, Peter’s lips curled into a bloodthirsty grin.
“Take them. Take them all,” Peter whispered, voice cold and resolute.



System..



Sacrifice acknowledged…
Do you wish to proceed?




 
"Yes!" Peter shouted, and the world shook. A tremor in the very space. An echo followed — a whisper of dread, recorded only in forbidden tomes. It spooked the kobolds into retreating again.
His shadow stretched out before him, expanding fifteen times its usual size. It twisted unnaturally in countless ways, darkening even further until it was blacker than night. The ever-changing shadow, now given life, rose upwards between Peter and the kobolds. The mass of pure darkness writhed, reaching up to two and a half meters.
Slowly, it took humanoid form, facing Peter. A male wearing darkness as a cloak, hiding uncountable tentacles under it, some of them visible at the bottom.
Unwilling to give up on the young human, but too cautious of the unexpected arrival, the kobolds just observed. Hard to know if it was another foe while it faced the little human.



System...


Contract established with Deathknell



 
Peter stared ahead, at the being that occupied his entire vision. The eldritch spirit stared right back. The spirit’s presence was not just seen, but felt. It had no eyes, but Peter felt a thousand gazes observing him.
Peter felt like he was sinking into a deep ocean, the longer he stared at the being. A creeping suffocation made him wobble in place. His ears bled, hearing the footsteps of ruin and despair. They eerily sounded like a bell.
Peter tried to look away, but found himself incapable, forced to watch its form constantly fracture and reform.
The kobolds recoiled, their primal instincts screaming that whatever it was, it was doom itself. But the being did not move against them. Instead, it kept staring at Peter, and a multitude of notifications hit him.




Spirit of fortitude resists greater fear.
Eternal Ward successfully protected from soul corruption
Eternal Ward successfully protected from mental corruption
Eternal Ward successfully protected from mental domination




 
Peter’s eyes widened in surprise, ‘This… this creature wasn’t supposed to attack me. The act was against the very contract it signed,’ he thought, finding his back covered in sweat.
As the enforcer of the contract, System responded to the breach. The skill was only supposed to call beings that were unable to harm Peter. Despite that, Peter had contingency plans even for such a scenario.



System...


Contract violation detected. Imposing further restrictions on DeathKnell for violating the contract.



 
‘It was not sapient. Why would it try to defy a contract enforced by the System itself?’ Peter thought, watching as a magical circle formed beneath the eldritch being.
The circle pulsed with ambient mana. Cracks split the air as glowing chains surged inward to bind the creature. It thrashed like a beast caught in a cage, lunging at the circle’s edge, each time a transparent wall preventing it from escaping. Even the divine struggled to oppose the system. It would accomplish nothing.
Moments later, the circle faded. Peter observed the eldritch being with curious eyes, noting the chain marks covering its cloak all over.
Peter gave it a cold smile. “Go and claim your sacrifice,” he whispered. The bell of death and destruction obeyed, turning toward the sea of kobolds. Their shadows merged as one under its will, covering the ground in pitch black. From the shadows, ink-like tentacles emerged.
Some were impaled. Others had their bodies coiled by the tentacles. Countless alien eyes glowed faintly with a reddish hue across the surface of each tentacle. Those still alive struggled in vain as they were pulled into their shadows, into oblivion.
Once the last body vanished, the eldritch horror turned to Peter, awaiting his next command.
“Why did you stop? Clear them all. Eradicate them,” Peter snarled. “There are more in the village. Even more in the forest,” The faces of the recently dead surfaced before his vision.
“Don’t stop until they’re all dead,” he said. His father’s smiling face flashed through his mind.
The creature gave no reply. It simply dissolved into the shadows and vanished, disappearing from Peter’s sight. But Peter still felt it, as soul bound to it. It killed for him, out there somewhere.
No longer worried about the horde, Peter allowed himself to glance at his notifications. They were constantly increasing, no doubt due to the ongoing kobold slaughter by Deathknell.



System...



You have killed a level 24 kobold. 340 experience rewarded.
You have killed a level 27 kobold. 390 experience rewarded.
You have killed a level 22 kobold. 320 experience rewarded.
…
Your summon Deathknell has killed a level 23 kobold. 140 experience rewarded.
Your summon Deathknell has killed a level 27 kobold. 150 experience rewarded.
Your summon Deathknell has killed a level 21 kobold. 120 experience rewarded.
…
You have gained a total of 59,200 experience points. You have levelled up to 35.







System...



Congratulations! You have unlocked dexterity.
Congratulations! You have gained two new titles.
You have gained the Title: True Cultist.
You have gained the Title: The Walking Calamity.




 
Neither sounded good to Peter. He focused on them to read their descriptions.



Title...



True Cultist
Perform a ritual and sacrifice more than 100 beings.
Effect: - 500 karma



Title…



The Walking Calamity
Become the master of the Bell That Heralds Calamity.
Effect: Grants the user the ability to wear Deathknell — the Eldritch Spirit of the Abyss — as a Spirit Armament in the form of a living, shroud-like cloak.




 
Peter’s Class Joker was a Rare-grade class that granted 3 free stat points with every level, on top of 1 point each in Constitution and Spirit. With some quick math, Peter realised he had 99 stat points to allocate. For the moment, he ignored the Titles and focused on that.
He decided to invest 9 points into the newly unlocked Dexterity and 7 points into Perception, bringing both of them to the same value. Since today had been a prime example of why Peter needed magical skills, he put 21 points into Intelligence. Only 2 points in luck. Last but not least, Agility and Strength received 30 points each.
He summoned his Status Screen and began placing points into his stats, before turning his attention to the growth of his skills.



Status...


Name:
Peter
Race:
Human


Class:
Joker {Rare} lv. 34, Villager lv. 1
Level:
35


Title:
Trailblazer: Skills, Skill Creator, True Cultist, The Walking Calamity
Age:
10


Experience:
0/35000
Free stat point:
0


Health:
460
Mana:
3150


Stats...


Constitution:
46
Spirit:
315


Strength:
41
Agility:
41


Dexterity:
10




Intelligence:
40
Perception:
10


Luck:
20
Charisma:
35


Skills:
IDE, Status Camouflage, Mana sense Lv. 38, Mana Manipulation Lv. 22, Weapons Mastery Lv.24, Undying Vitality lv.29, Split Focus, Eternal Ward lv. 24, Spirit of Fortitude lv. 38, Inspect lv.25, Summoning
Summons:
Deathknell lv. 220