There were a lot of ants, Mash noticed this as he killed them in groups of five or six with each attack. Several of the wooden replicas of Priscilla had begun eating the ants like a snake. The sound of carapace crunching was heard through the stadium, filling the arena with the sickening breaking noise. His creations could manage it easily, and at their current size were swallowing two or three ants at a time. The fighting in the distance was easy since once his creations caught on fire the ants didn’t really have much more they could do them. It's not like they could be on fire more. At some point though, Priscilla would tell Mash that one of his creations was unstable and to break it off and start forming another.
This was the most annoying aspect of the fight since he was constantly forced to replace his weapon, and the other creations, as they took a lot of damage during his attacks. It was just another thing that drew some of his and Priscilla’s concentration. He believed that Priscilla could handle herself but was worried about his own condition. Though it was growing easier as his stats improved. The longer this fight the better he would be, and he was hoping that persist would buff him soon.
Mash found it surprisingly easy to follow her instructions, despite the up-close fighting he needed to focus on. She would form all the pathways for his energy, and all he needed to do was fill them in. It was still slower than if it was the only thing he needed to focus on, but the fighting at melee range was growing more dangerous. Once the ants got close, they lit their entire bodies aflame and threw themselves at him. Mash only realized it was a suicidal attack when he cut one of the burning bodies in two and felt nothing. He was also surprised at how weak their outer shell really was. It cut apart with little effort, and it was clear that it was not meant for defense. These creatures were not meant to survive a hostile encounter, but to die and take their opponent down with them. Their only real attack was a suicidal rush, and not one had shot the ball of fire that Jack had mentioned. That probably meant that they were not the exact same monster. Their suicidal nature was annoying though. Normally, killing a monster would give someone a slight feeling of energy or power, indicating that they were progressing towards a level. Some of the kills he was getting told him it was too late.
Not many of the kills ended that way though, as he focused on killing the ants that lit aflame first. He essentially was aiming to kill them while they were in the process of killing themselves. It was a bit strange to think about and increased the danger a bit, but it wasn't anything he couldn’t handle. That didn’t mean that he didn’t get burned, the sheer heat they gave off had reddened his skin, thankfully his clothes weren’t completely burned through. He was wearing a type of training clothes that were less likely to burn off. Though catching on fire might be the end of them. It had almost happened a few times too, though his constant movement had killed the flames before they could spread.
So, the fight continued like this, and he had sustained his fair share of burns. He didn’t have the time or focus to care about that though, as Priscilla would warn him if things ever got too dire. For now, he spun among the ants, cutting those he could up close, and decimating their horde from afar. If nothing else, this fight had been a prime example of what he had been trying to achieve with Priscilla thus far, and they still hadn’t perfected it yet.
The other surprising thing he noticed, was the slight anti synergy of skills. As his carnivorous tree skill gained him stats, it took longer for his persist buffs to trigger. When he was able to devour so many creatures with each attack, his carnivorous tree skill was noticeably increasing his stats, and while it did make him faster and stronger, he was recovering a lot of energy from the skill. Unconsciously, Mash had come to rely on persist for battles like this and had expected the skill to kick in by now. While his stat gains from the carnivorous tree skill were becoming big, they were still small when compared to the jump he felt with persist.
“Priscilla, hold off on eating, just kill until persist kicks in.”
Giving Priscilla the command was easy enough, though it took a while for her to respond. As he heard her response, he was surprised to feel like she was putting a considerable amount of effort in. He figured it was easy for her to make the pathways, but it seemed like he had been wrong about that. She adjusted quickly to the command though, and he felt the steady improvement he had been feeling stop.
The sudden lack of incoming energy had been more detrimental than he expected. He stumbled when it happened, almost falling into an ant, but managed to stop himself by turning it into a shoulder tackle. He collided with the Flaming Ant that he planned on splitting in two and bounced off it returning to his motions. He didn’t immediately notice the burning on his clothes, but Priscilla did, and she actually tore his shirt off, ripping it along the sides so that it would fall away. It did fall away, but not before he felt a scathing pain from the burning of his skin, the smell not making it any better. The smell of the battlefield was already unpleasant from the plethora of burning ant corpses, but somehow his own skin burning smelled even worse. There was another problem with this, one he hadn’t considered until it happened. His skin was marred with long black mana scars, and patches of black scales as if some had used it to replace wounded skin. Simply, he looked like a monster and was no longer able to hide his appearance.
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The strangest thing about this was the lack of care he felt. In a fight, in a moment like this, he could forget the perception of others. Priscilla's encouragement for carnage felt easier to accept, his own monstrous side felt more right. He was a human, but not when he fought. Then he was something else, not a monster but something not human either. He was simply what he was. There was a joy in accepting that. He probably would’ve removed his mask if he remembered it, but he was too absorbed by the fight. Consumed by the thrill, the rush of gaining levels had happened several times.
He didn’t know how much time had actually passed, but he felt a new kind of power envelope him. Finally, persist kicked in, and the buffs caused his abilities to expand, to double. Priscilla took advantage of that first, making him enlarge the creations further, each becoming as large as she had been during the dungeon. There was a difference though, with over twenty of the creations rampaging in the surrounding, crushing groups of ants against the floor and walls. Priscilla had also started devouring ants again, and he felt his stats start to rise.
For his part, Mash took advantage of his improved speed and reflexes, more easily able to kill the nearby ants. The biggest benefit of the improved stats was the greater toughness his body got, making the fires less harmful, and dodging more effectively. The other thing he noticed, much to his happiness and surprise, was the dulling of pain he felt. He was now gaining more health than he lost, and the pain he felt was reflecting that. He kept going, another level up encouraging him to do more. He continued to fight like a vagabond, without a shirt and laughing as the adrenaline from the fight made it harder to contain himself.
Something changed though, and he found his laughter dying. The fight was becoming easy, the challenge fading as he grew stronger. The ants’ numbers were dwindling, but there was still a lot. The problem was with him, his stats had become too high, and these weak opponents became nothing more than simple ants. At the start, they were monsters who could inflict serious harm and even possibly kill him, but now they were mere insects. Each swing of his weapon would kill a group of them, each of his creations was unstoppable at this point. He knew from this fight that he was strongest against a plethora of weaker enemies, but that wasn’t actually something that he wanted. By the time the fight came to an end, he was pleased with his levels but disappointed with the fight.
What did he expect would happen if his stats kept rising? He didn’t know, but no fights had changed this much. This had been a complete shift, from a challenge to a bore. He wondered if his future fights would be like this but hoped that it would only be the case against these types of monsters. He made sure to kill the last ant while he stood on the platform, telling Priscilla to make sure he stayed standing. She did it by using some of his creations to be ready to prop of his body. It was only then that he realizes the number of tails he had attached to him. He must have looked truly freakish as twenty tails of wood sprouted from his back. They grew in thickness and size the further they were from his body and scanned the battlefield as he came to a stop atop the platform.
It was a mess, the floor and walls covered in ant viscera and cracked from his attacks. The arena was ruined with damage, and he could only vaguely hear the announcer’s commentary as the fight came to an end. Most of his creations had stopped moving by now and were laying across the battlefield as enormous logs and sculptures. Several were burning, but most only had some scorch marks on them. Mash only looked towards the crowd once he killed the final ant and stopped moving, having made it fully onto the platform.
He was only able to catch a glimpse of their faces as he fell into unconsciousness. Some of them he recognized as they matched the looks of those that watched him when he was a child. The look of fear that he had mistakenly thought was disgust. There was another set of faces that surprised him even more than the fear, a look of acknowledgment, of awe. There were far fewer with that look in their eyes, but they were there. It filled Mash with pride, with a burning desire to maintain his consciousness, to keep up the image that those few saw in him. The fear he was familiar with, the awe and respect was something he craved. He didn’t think it was something that would ever be directed at him, but he saw that it was possible. It was then at this moment, that he found the strength to remove his mask. To let it fall to the floor and let them see his face as he descended from the battlefield.
Mash had unconsciously kept the mask on, knowing that it would be a bad idea to remove it, but felt the urge to take it off now. It had hidden his face and more specifically his eyes. Those he knew were the most jarring part of his transformation, even more, the inhuman scales marring parts of his body. His eyes had always scared people, even when they weren’t monster-like. Now, they were practically a weapon in themselves, a way to intimidate his opponents. So, he kept it hidden, knowing that one day it would probably be revealed. Looking at those few faces, he decided that they deserved to see him for what he was and let them meet his unnatural eyes, as he forced himself to keep them open. They would know him for what and who he was.
He did do one last thing before losing himself, and he grinned as he checked his status. Even though he was only able to see his level before, losing to the darkness of unconsciousness. He thought that he managed it, managed to maintain his consciousness until he fell out of the view of the audience.
Name: Mash Class: Scale Wood Devourer
Level: 41 → 47