Transmigrated as a Ghost

The Umbrashnul King reached out with his right hand and made a grabbing motion with it in the air.

At first there was nothing, and Marcus wondered if he was bluffing or something.

He had been prepared for some sort of deadly attack, but so far, his opponent was just standing there with an almost blank expression.

Marcus nearly leapt forward and attacked in that moment. If his adversary was focused on some big spell or skill, then he might be able it interrupt it.

However, he held himself back, not discounting the possibility that this was a trap of some kind to bait him into acting when he should have been waiting.

There were an innumerable number of skills out there, and some of them could turn the tide of a battle in an instant. Especially among Supreme or unique skills.

Unfortunately, Marcus' caution turned out to be a mistake this time, and if he knew what was coming, he would have attacked the Umbrashnul King with everything he had in order to stop the man from activating the skill called Hand of Greed.

'What the hell?!'

An inexplicable weakness suddenly took hold of Marcus, and he nearly collapsed to his knees.

He felt horribly sick. More so than even when he bottomed out on mana and spiritual energy at the same time.

A second later, he lost control of his tier ten light magic spell and the immense amount of mana condensed within the Celestial Corona hit him with devastating backlash.

The resulting explosion blew him away, and he was too stunned by what was going on to turn intangible before he slammed against one of the walls of the chamber.

The impact hurt, but it was nowhere near as distressing as what was going on with him.

When he was finally able to gather his thoughts, he noticed that it was not only his light magic that had failed him, but Embodiment of Eclipse as well.

Marcus was still wreathed in powerful darkness, but the light that had accompanied it was gone.

'My wounds aren't healing!'

Normally, his high speed regeneration would have already kicked in to fix up the damage that he had taken, but its presence was noticeably absent.

Knowing that he likely did not have long before the Umbrashnul King came looking for him, Marcus instead cast a healing magic spell to fix up his injuries.

Yet, as he tried to circulate the mana necessary for the spell, it was slow and painful. It was like there was something inside of him clogging what had previously been a seamless flow.

Abandoning the spell, he instead focused on using Spirit Healing, and this worked as it usually did. Much to Marcus' relief.

Quickly his wounds sealed over and the essence leaking out of him stopped.

Still, his Specter Powers still working as expected did little to assuage his distress.

'There's something wrong with me. What did that skill do?'

Except, before he had the chance to investigate, his danger sense was blaring an alarm in his head.

Instinctually, he created a Dark Portal and jumped through it.

He had already sneakily set up a few over the area and he was glad for his forethought as it allowed him to avoid being torn to shreds by a wave of roiling shadow blades.

Once he came out of the adjoining portal, he saw the Umbrashnul King's back.

The man was facing where he had just been, obviously having launched a powerful attack to try and finish Marcus off.

With an opening presenting itself to him, Marcus aimed at the man and attempted to fire a laser spell.

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

Not only was it difficult to control the mana within him, but the spell did not even attempt to be conjured.

'It couldn't be!' Marcus thought, hoping that the realization he just had was not true.

When he opened his status though, his fears were confirmed.

A quick skim over his skills showed that several of them were grayed out.

He no longer had access to six of his regular skills and four of his unique skills.

For the regular skills, he had lost Magic Circulation, High Speed Regeneration, Light Magic, Dull Pain, Mana Thief, and Unbreakable.

More alarming, however, was the unique skills that were gone.

Soul Burst, Deny Destruction, Sound Mind, and Embodiment of light were all grayed out.

'Sh*t! No wonder I can't cast magic. He took Magic Circulation, so any skill that uses mana is basically impossible to use. And he must have taken Light Magic just to be safe. The others are just strong skills that are good for anyone.'

It was easy to see where the Umbrashnul King's priorities lied.

He had first taken away Marcus' offensive light-based skills and then targeted ones that were either crucial for anyone or would be very powerful for him.

With one move, he had crippled Marcus and left him far weaker than he had been before.

What truly hurt was that Embodiment of Eclipse had been disabled as well despite none of his other Supreme Skills being touched.

This was simply a byproduct of losing Embodiment of Light though.

Marcus' first Supreme Skill was a combination of the two elemental unique skills he had gained after bonding with Roxene and receiving blessings from her parents. Without one of them, it was impossible to use the composite Supreme Skill.

"Oh, that must have been your Dark Portal skill. It activates quicker than I thought it would. Perhaps is should have taken that one instead. I can move through the shadows quite quickly, but instantly moving from one place to another like would be useful." The Umbrashnul King said in a confident, superior tone.

His words also confirmed what Marcus had already been expecting.

The skills he had lost were not merely disabled. They had been stolen.

"Where did you get ahold of something like that? No way it was merely a unique skill. There wouldn't be one powerful enough for this. That had to be a Supreme Skill."

Marcus wanted to fish for information and stall for time while he thought up a plan to get out of the dire situation he found himself in.

Thankfully, the Umbrashnul King was certainly feeling assured of his victory now and only needed a little prompting to start monologuing.

"Yes, it is a fabled Supreme Skill. Considering your power and knowledge of them, I'm certain that you possess one or two yourself. If only I could have stolen them as well. Sadly, even a Supreme Skill has its limits."

"As for how I acquired it, that is a secret I have no reason to share. Still, I am magnanimous and will enlighten you as to the power of Hand of Greed. It allows me to steal up to ten skills from a target. With a maximum of four being unique skills. And this is not something that is on a time limit. If you were hoping to stall until your skills return, I'm afraid that will not be happening. These skills are mine now until the end of time unless I use hand of Greed again. And considering its fifty-year cooldown period, well you'll have to wait a long time indeed to regain your skills." The Umbrashnul King said, wearing a spiteful smile.

Marcus could not discern whether the man was telling the truth of not, but it really did not matter.

He was already under the impression that his skills were not going to come back to him unless he killed the one who had stolen them.

At least, under normal circumstances. He had one more trick to try and see if he could not fix his current problem.

'Ultimate Refresh.'

A silver glow enveloped Marcus as he activated a second charge from the Supreme Skill he had obtained from the special dungeon.

Often, he used it as if it was a healing ability, but that was not truly what it did.

The skill's deception stated that it would bring anyone's status that it was used on back to normal.

In this case, Marcus was hoping that would mean that his skills were returned to him. He could still see them on his status; they were just grayed out.

Unlike normal, the skill's power did not work seamlessly.

Marcus could feel it fighting against something that was equally powerful.

Luckily, it seemed that the Umbrashnul King was not having an easy time of it either, since it was his own skill that Ultimate Refresh was trying to repel.

The battle went on for almost an entire minute before the winner was decided.

Much to Marcus' dismay, his Supreme Skill petered out and was unable to bring his stolen skills back.

While both Ultimate Refresh and Hand of Greed were the same level of skill, it seemed that the one possessed by the Umbrashnul King was slightly stronger.

The only way that Marcus could get his stolen skills back was to the kill the man.

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