Chapter 44: Power of Red Rider.
The Abaddon Slime King was let out of the storage. Upon finding itself in a foreign environment, it was on high alert. Slime’s natural instant was to consume all food it finds. They do not have a natural enemy in nature but they do tend to avoid A rank beasts. Therefore they will attack all enemies except those with a majestic aura. The king slime was made to combat any beast a small group of slimes couldn’t.
Realizing that there’s no A rank beast present, it let its guard down a bit. Ming walked toward it with her aura wrapped around her body. The slime noticed her and classified her as food. It immediately lashed out with an arm of slime. It shot from its main body like a spear.
[Ming]: Ugh, I hate slimes.
She waved her hand and a wall of blood appeared out of thin air. The arm struck the shield with a loud thud. The shield held as the slime dispersed at the point of contact.
[Ming]: Hmm, I think I have a strategy that might work.
As the arm of slime retreated back into the slime, it carried a bit of the blood from the shield with it.
[Ming]: Since it lacks blood, let give it some.
The shield in front of Ming slowly warped as its shining surface became bumpy and agitated. Then suddenly, a rain of blood exploded from the shield toward the slime.
Sensing that it was an attack, the slime hardened its surface as the rain barraged it. Soon the slime was almost entirely covered in blood.
[Ming]: This almost used up my entire reservoir…
She has been saving blood from hundreds of large beasts. But the sheer size of the Abaddon King Slime require almost all of it just to coat in blood.
[Ming]: Now, let’s see how you handle being squeezed.
With both of her hands, she clapped as a symbol appeared between her hands. As the symbol appeared, the blood on the slime turned from a liquid running down the slime, into a solid shell covering the entirety of the slime.
Ming wrap her hands around the symbol like a ball and started squeezing. The shell surrounding the slime started to contract.
A sharp shrill could be heard as the slime was slowly being squeezed. Without a single hole for the slime to escape from, the slime was being slowly pressured tighter and tighter.
[Ming]: This is harder than I thought.
Sweat could be seen dripped from her forehead as the ball slowly contract smaller and smaller. Soon it started fluctuating as the pressure inside of the ball become increasingly greater.
[Ming]: Its, core should be within range now.
Ming suddenly gripped her hand into a fist and the shell stopped shrinking. Suddenly an extremely sharp scream could be heard coming from within it.
[Ming]: I think I got it.
As the shell of blood started to turn to dust, it revealed the inside was completely covered in spikes. One of the spike have penetrated a bluish sphere straight through the center. Its core was the fusion of all the slime cores of entire group. With it destroyed, the slime could no longer hold its body together.
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The reason why the slime couldn’t properly use its ability to escape from the thin solid shell, was because of the blood that went inside of it earlier with the arm. The small amount of blood was constantly assaulting its core, forcing the slime to focus all it’s defensed on the inside, trying to remove the foreign liquid. But it was too late. By the time it finally removed the blood, the shell turned into an iron maiden prison as spikes exploded from the inside, penetrating its core.
[Crule]: That was faster than I thought it would take. It seems you have gotten better.
[Ming]: *panting* I had some insights on new ways to use my power.
[Crule]: You must be tired, come let’s get some food.
[Ming]: Man, my reservoir of blood is almost dry…
[Crule]: We can replenish it after we leave.
[Ming]: Thanks Master!
[Crule]: Stop calling me that already!
Crule picked up the broken core and placed it in his storage. They walked back to their camp and had a nice rest.
______
One day away from the three year deadline, Crule and Ming were still focusing on creating their gates.
[Crule]: So close to finishing the fifth gate.
Back in the old world, Crule was twenty seven when he started on his fifth gate. Already having insight on all seven of the gate, it took far shorter time to create them. Once the fifth gate is created, Crule could be considered a force that could destroy a country.
Every person who have found their attribute, and reached the pinnacle of understanding their attribute, could start creating gates. Every expert know about the gates, but they do not know how to form them. The method varies greatly from person to person so there is no one fixed method. The number of gates one has created, could be considered their top life’s achievement.
In the hidden world of Warriors and Mages, these gates represent a title. Those who have opened one gate could be considered an expert, an Elite. Two gates allow one to receive the title of Expert. Three gates were rare and thus called Virtuoso. Four gates were monsters of their own rights and were give the title Monarch. Fifth gates were terrors that were mainly seen in myths. They were called Ancients.
Six gate was unheard of as no one has currently reached it. They would be given the title of Deus.
And lastly seventh gate. They were called archetype because they have become the symbol of their attribute, having fully mastered it.
This was the ranking system used by the current Warriors and Mages. But what they don’t realize, was in Crule’s future, there were powers far exceeding the seventh gate. They just don’t have a name for it yet.
As of now, Crule’s full title would be Monarch Crule Wu. Ming’s would be Monarch Zhuang Yue Ming. These were official titles if they were to register with the Warriors’ and Mages’ guild that manages all of the professionals on the planet.
Back in his future, Crule and Ming had other titles.
Crule Wu, the Onyx Demon Devourer.
Zhuang Yue Ming, the Crimson Blood Valkyrie.