“I think you know this already but while we said we’ll help you, it doesn’t mean we’re gonna save your ass from everything. The whole purpose of this is so that you can protect yourself.” Ilena lectured him.
“I know.”
“Then, let’s get going!” Eren said excitedly.
The party of three walked through the dungeon portal, going right back into their habitat.
With the help of his two new teammates, Ad was able to focus all his attentions on getting a hang of his new skills. He still had to take care of the monsters that came his way but he was able to clean those up easily.
They were already at the 3rd floor after just half an hour of fighting, all of this was only possible due to his two strong teammates. With Eren at the front blitzing through everything and Ilena providing ranged support, no monster could withstand their onslaught.
“Time’s up, it your turn to fight Aiden.” Ilena said.
She had given him a time limit previously for him to get used to his new skills, afterwards he would be the vanguard instead of Eren. That would continue until he could no longer fight and Eren would take over. It wasn’t the most effective way but it would have to do for now.
Ilena would only heal him if he was close to dying, not if he ran out of mana so he had to be conservative in his skill usage. He would like to learn that healing spell she used though, it was a pretty strong recovery spell.
Right now they were facing off direwolves, who were known for their speed and power so he couldn’t afford to get hit directly.
“Alright, let’s do this.” He encouraged himself.
“Grr, Awoo!” The pack leader howled loudly, causing the wolves around it to surge forward.
“Boost.” Leaping forward, he tore off a wolf head before it could turn around.
With that, he found himself in the middle of the whole pack, causing the wolves around him to stumble as they tried to turn towards him. Not missing the opportunity, he managed to take down two more before he had to dodge out of the way.
But now they were all facing him in a cone shaped radius, knocked them down with a Blast before cleaning up the battlefield.
“Not bad for your first try but you didn’t need the first boost to reach the center.” Eren remarked.
“I’ll try that next time.” Ad replied not being offended by his advice, he was the better fighter after all.
Ilena would be the one taking care of all the loot they had with her pick-up item skill and a spatial bag. Both of which were probably extremely rare or expensive to get but he wasn’t going to ask where they got it unless they wanted to tell him.
While they were still clearing the entire floor before going up, Ad was now forced to perform just as efficient and fast as Eren. It was definitely a tall task for him when he only had a couple minutes to familiarise with his recent power up.
Sending two Slashes out to both sides and another normal swing in the middle, the direwolf leader couldn’t do anything except to die.This was already their 7th pack and Ad could already feel the exhaustion creeping up on him.
“Tired already?” Eren asked, slightly concerned.
“No, I can still keep going.” Ad replied calmly.
With a goal in mind and a potential real threat chasing him, he found even more motivation than usual to keep fighting and getting stronger. Until he literally fell down from exhaustion, he would try his best to keep going forward.
“1 Slash should have been enough if you angled it at its left and your sword coming from the right. Stop being wasteful, well at least you don’t repeat the same mistakes constantly.”
He didn’t say anything choosing to move forward and not make the same mistake in the next fight. They say the next pack of wolves just as the wolves noticed them so Ad couldn’t start off with a preemptive strike like he liked.
Well it just meant he had to be even more conservative of how he fought. Letting the direwolves come to him, he lowered his posture slightly to receive the incoming attacks. The first direwolf lunged at him it’s claws shining in an ominous dark glow.
He simply tilted his body to the left and angled his sword into a weak upward swing, letting the wolf’s neck fall onto the blade naturally.
“Blast.” Detonating a seal on the floor creating a cloud of dust.
Stepping forward, Ad moved swiftly to end the lives of the direwolves that were blinded by the dust. He had counted 7 previously and he took down six only and in this cloud of dust he was also unable to see.
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“Tch, Scan.” Activating the seal unwillingly.
18 signals popped up onto the scan including the 3 of them, a few of which were dangerously close to him. It was pretty clear now that he wasn’t dealing with just a single pack of direwolves and he was totally unprepared for it.
“Tch, Boost, Double!” He blew away all the dust around him as he jumped into the air but he managed to see all of the direwolves surrounding him.
He definitely wasn’t going to be able to fight them all off without being extremely wasteful or extremely slow in his approach.
“Bind plus Blast!” He fired lines of flaming tendrils at the direwolves, trying to keep them contained for a few seconds.
It worked better than he expected as the direwolves were still screaming in pain when he landed. He wasn’t going to let this chance go to waste though, dashing forward immediately to finish the job.
He was lucky that the combination worked so well that he managed to make short work of the direwolves but it won’t happen twice.
“That was extremely lucky on your part but luck is part of a person’s ability. You probably didn’t need to boost twice but you’re getting there, in fact I’m surprised you improved so fast it's actually scary man.” Eren remarked.
“He is an awakened human for a reason, otherwise they would have picked this method to get stronger. It’s fast and risk free for them.” Ilena replied as she threw all the loot into her spatial bag.
“Can you still go on Aiden?”
“I should be fine for a few more fights.” Ad said after checking his status.
At 64% and 43% health and mana respectively, it wasn’t much but it should be enough to get them to the next floor. He found out during the previous scan that it was only a hundred or so meters away from them.
“Is that so? Just let’s keep going then!” Eren replied enthusiastically as ever.
*****
“This is boring.” The woman complained.
“No NOO, save me!” The man screamed in desperation trying desperately to crawl away.
A dark mass of energy dropped onto his head eradicating his entire body, leaving nothing behind. Meanwhile the woman stood atop a roof, watching the city beneath her burning to the ground.
To her left, another woman dressed in a black satin robe waved her hands lazily in the air, causing waves of destruction to occur around her.
Hapless citizens of the city ran amok the city, trying to do everything they could to escape their dying city. But it was a futile effort as tens of black armoured soldiers stood at all exits of the cities, cutting down anyone that dared to escape.
With no way out the citizens finally fell into despair, striking out at everyone around them in madness, casing even more mayhem. But the masterminds of this masacre merely stood far away from the entire scene, watching apathetically.
“Hey, how many more do we have to do?”
“3. Why are you asking Elin?”
“Well it looks like our pet is being led astray by a nuisance. Really now, how can they always find us so coincidentally. We were so careful this time too.” She moaned.
“It doesn’t matter, we’ll just need to find a more obedient pet next time they can’t stop us anyway. You said you had a pretty good candidate previously didn’t you?”
“But he’s much weaker than the current one.”
“Then we just need to rip everything out from including his latent talent to make up for it.”
“Ooh so cruel, but I love it so let’s do that shall we.”
A subtle wave of energy suddenly rippled past them before continuing onwards, causing both their faces to be marred by a frown.
“I definitely didn’t expect this how troublesome.” Mia frowned in displeasure.
“Ahh, the trouble makers are here huh, damn heretics should really just die already. Now we don’t have anymore time to play around.” Elin clearly shared the same sentiments as her sister.
“Clean this place up in 15 minutes, we’re leaving soon.” Mia said to no one in particular but the soldiers below clearly heard her orders and moved into a more active stance.
*****
“Achoo, ehh this is weird do I have a cold or something?” Rubbing his nose in mirth.
“Maybe someone is talking about how annoying you are.” A woman replied haughtily.
“Hahaha how can that be! I’m the kindest and most merciful person out there! How can someone ever speak badly of me, they must have been praising me instead!” he cried out narcissitically.
“They should probably noticed us arriving already go find a place to set up camp, we don’t have much time to hide.” Another male said.
9 other people walked out from the shimmering purple crack in the air, all splitting of in different directions once the order was given. Only the first 3 were left at the spot who started conversing with each other.
“The two groups that owns this sector is already here huh, looks like we’re gonna have some fun this time too.”
“What’s our goal here this time, I don’t want to spend another couple centuries on the run because of this retard not doing his job.” The woman said angrily.
“Don’t worry we’re recruiting new members this time. The two factions being here is going to help us a lot that you won’t have time to play around.”
“Ehh but that’s so boring Edward, let me do something else dammit, you know I suck at this kind of stuff.”
“Not happening, you have so many quotas that you missed if you don’t get at least 2 new members, you’ll have to personally explain to the leader.” Edward replied calmly.
“HUH, no way in hell am I gonna do that! I’m off to find new members, send me our base coordinates when you get them, later!” He said frantically before jumping into the air.
“That’s new, I never saw him act like that before.” The woman laughed.
“Well you’re pretty new so it's natural you don’t know their relationship, Cain is actually the leader’s younger brother so you can see why he’s so afraid of her.” Edward said with mirth.
“I see.” She replied now enlightened of their history.
“Hmm looks like Elric got us a pretty good location, let’s go.”
“Roger” She playfully saluted him before following him into the skies.
Meanwhile the main group of three were still blissfully unaware of the sudden change of their destiny. All three factions slowly moving forward with their own plans, inching closer and closer to each other.
The wheels of destiny has started moving again, blood would be shed endless, heros and villians would rise and a new legend would be born from it.