Chris hurried up the stairs, towards his shop, and Felix followed as he asked, "What’s a Dark Bomb?"

Arriving in the shop, Chris went to grab the meanest looking sword in the shop, the masterpiece that would draw the eye of every customer who entered, and which also happened to be an incredible weapon.

[Bloodletting, Great, Level 12]

[Attack: +58]

[Strength: +2]

[Requirements: 20 Strength]

[Bloodlust: Every consecutive kill adds a ‘Bloodlust’ charge. Every ‘Bloodlust’ charge increases damage by 2. Maximum amount of charges: 15. One charge disappears every 15 seconds.]

"A Dark Bomb is a nasty kind of bomb. Deals big damage to infrastructures, and curses anyone within a certain radius."

Felix asked, "Was that wave of mana the curse?"

Chris shook his head, "No, only after effects. You would be warned by the System if you were cursed. Now, pick up your weapon fast and come fight!"

Felix nodded and quickly fetched a spear on the wall, his own creation. It might seem unsafe, hanging there all day with basically no one to watch over the weapons as both Chris and Felix were forging, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Chris had quite the skills in Warding, and trying to steal from him would not end well for the thief. At all.

Picking up the spear, Felix smiled at his creation.

[Skera, Fine, Level 15]

[Attack: +28]

[Agility: +1]

[Requirements: 15 Strength, 10 Agility]

[Extend: Extend the spear with mana. Cost of expansion rises with size.]

It was Felix’s best creation so far, as well as the only Fine quality item he had managed to make. Thankfully, items in Epoch did not have Item requirements, so with his improved stats Felix was able to use it.

Of course, it wasn’t as good as Chris’ masterpiece, Bloodletting, although it was three levels higher, it was a whole quality behind.

Actually, Felix’s level in blacksmithing wasn’t good enough for him to craft a Fine weapon, nor did he have the attributes for a Level 15 weapon.

But him not getting any Profession had shone, as he had an epiphany. If he had to do it again, Felix wouldn’t be able to do so, but he had managed to surpass his own limits, and make this weapon.

Anyway, after having picked up his weapon, Felix quickly followed Chris, going the opposite way of the panicked citizens.

The town itself wasn’t very big, and Chris’ shop was apparently not that far from the point of explosion as the two didn’t take long to arrive, and what they saw as they arrived wasn’t pretty.

There were already a few corpses strewn around, some from the explosion, others from the monsters. As for these monsters… they were nothing Felix had ever seen.

[Ocumini, Level 15, Common]

They were tall, around three meters tall, and its head was a giant bloodshot eye, with an orange, reptilian pupil in the middle. Its body was even more grotesque, as although it may have been humanoid at some point, it now had dozens of arms all over its body.

It wasn’t a hastily made graft either, the monster’s body was charcoal black, including the arms, but there were no signs of stitches or scars.

Looking at them, everything pointed to the word scary. And it wasn’t simply their looks, as he felt uncomfortable every time one of them looked at him. It wasn’t natural, and looking at the shivering survivors, it was probably a skill that inflicted Fear.

Of course, the monsters themselves were scary enough. Because of their size, the guards and few players present were having a hard time dealing any real damage, as the arms were long enough to keep them out of reach.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The Ocumini seemed to attack and defend by grabbing things with their hands. Hell, they didn’t even have feet, it was arms too. And they grabbed everything that approached them, be it weapons or people, and crushed them.

And from the deformed weapons and mutilated bodies, most of which had bones sticking out of them, their strength wasn’t something to laugh at.

Cutting their arms off didn’t seem to be dealing much damage either, as they didn’t seem to bleed, and they had dozens of arms anyway, so the only real damage done had either to be on their main body, behind the layers of arms, or the big, orange eye, which happened to be three meters high.

There were a few archers present, but the Ocuminis’ eyes were mostly focusing on them and the casters, showing their intelligence.

All in all, this was a bad situation. Moreover, the corpses were emitting a strange black smoke that did not look good.

"Odin! We gotta get out of here!"

Felix curiously turned his head to look at the person who spoke to him, and spotted Pedro, the streamer who had been watching his training.

There were several other players behind him, most of the ones left, and they looked like they were fleeing too. Despite being around Level 10.

Twirling his spear off his back, Felix smiled and replied, "You were the one who asked to see a real fight, didn’t you?"

Pedro looked dumbfounded for a moment, before he showed a look of hesitation.

"I’m not losing my levels to watch a Level 1 get killed!"

One of the players behind Pedro cried out, and the other players seemed to agree with him as they ran off. Pedro, though, did not move, and even said, "Alright, I will support you."

Felix shook his head and replied, "Protect the villagers instead, I can protect myself."

Whether Pedro wanted to answer to that or not, the Ocumini weren’t leaving them time to discuss as two of them arrived quickly next to them, having passed Chris who was dealing with four of them all by himself, cutting their arms off at quick speed.

Taking a deep breath in, Felix suddenly rushed at the two Ocumini, both more than ten levels ahead of him.

The two were welcoming him with wide open arms too, but as they were about to grab him, Felix jumped up, and moved his Mana through Skera as he pointed it toward the eye of one of the two.

A blue ephemeral blade appeared at the tip of Felix’s spear, and stabbed straight into the Ocumini’s eye, forcing it to coil back as it received a grave injury. However, Felix was now right in front of the second one, and being mid air, he couldn’t dodge.

Or shouldn’t be able to.

Moving a part of his mana under his foot, a ‘Shield’ Rune appeared under his foot, and even if it was only for an instant, Felix used the solid manifestation of mana as support to make a second jump, dodging the many hands and landing on top of the second Ocumini.

Then, Felix cut off the stream of mana he sent into the spear, making the extension disappear, along with any resistance as Felix slashed under him, making a long cut across the second Ocumini’s eye.

Neither of the two now blinded Ocuminis made even a whimper despite the injuries, probably because of the lack of mouth, Felix realized, but the damage was there nonetheless.

Not wanting to get grabbed, Felix jumped off the Ocumini as soon as made the cut, and what followed surprised him quite a bit.

The two blindly searched around themselves for him, and naturally found each other. The many arms of the other did not seem to alert either of them though as they started tearing each other apart, like mindless beasts.

This was… surprising. But welcomed, as the two Ocumini looked like they would go at it until they died. So while they tore each other to shreds, Felix looked around for another prey, and it didn’t take long for him to find it as a grin broke out on his face.

Among all the Ocumini, one of them stood out, as not only was it even taller than the others, it also had more arms, each of which looked stronger, and its eye was a redder shade of orange.

[Ocumini, Level 20, Elite]

It was 19 levels higher than Felix, as well as an Elite monster. Right now, it stood among the ruins of the ravaged town’s rampart, surrounded by four Elite guards, all between Level 12 and 15. One of them Felix even recognized, as it was Caleb, Chris’ brother, with whom he had fought.

Logically, this monster should be way out of Felix’s league, yet as he looked at it, Felix didn’t feel like he was facing an invincible foe. Instead, all he saw was a massive HP pool, with which he would be able to experiment.

So without any more hesitation, Felix rushed at the Elite Ocumini, ignoring the ones on the way.

The Elites fighting obviously saw him arrive, but they were all too busy to tell him off, and the Ocumini didn’t seem to mind him. Something Felix decided to use.

As he reached the monster, Felix made a first jump, before making a second one in the air, followed by a third one, which allowed him to reach the Ocumini’s eye.

By now, its full attention was upon him as it seemed to have realized its mistake, but it was too late. Although the full force of the Ocumini’s Fear skill was blasting upon Felix, he did not even hesitate for an instant as he mightily swept his spear at the eye.

As his blade clashed against the eye, Felix felt like he was slashing into jelly as the power in his spear was massively lowered. Yet, the blade still managed to cut the eye.

The cut wasn’t deep enough to blind the Ocumini unfortunately, as it tried to grab Felix, but he had already used another Rune, ‘Push’, pushing himself a meter back.

Landing easily on the ground, Felix looked at the guards around him and said, "Go help the others, I can deal with this one on my own."

They usually would never take orders from a Level 1, especially not an Otherworlder, but it seemed his attack had awed them as they did not even discuss before leaving to help the fighters in need, although Caleb did send Felix a glance.

They hadn’t known each other for long, but Felix could tell he was telling him to be careful.

Felix only grinned as his attention returned to the Elite Ocumini, his mana blaring out of his body due to the excitement.

An oppressive aura formed around Felix’s body, but the Ocumini seemed undisturbed as it reached Felix, going for another grab. Felix had to take a large step to dodge, because of the size of the monsters, and he tried to attack one of the arms, but he was barely able to graze it.

It seemed that if he wanted to harm it, Felix could only attack its weak points.

As Felix was about to jump for his attack though, the Elite Ocumini’s speed suddenly sharply increased as it arrived before Felix in an instant, its massive body blocking most of Felix’s vision. Moreover, because he had been about to jump, his balance was wrong and he couldn’t jump back.

Knowing dodging was out of the question, Felix used the Rune that seemed to be the most appropriate to him at the moment, and so a rune appeared on the ground in front of him.

With the Rune’s activation, a small part of the ground turned into mud, and although it was far from big enough to swallow the monster, one of its supporting hands fell right through, causing the monster to lose equilibrium and use its other hands to stabilize.

It only took a moment, but it was enough for Felix to proceed with his double jump, and stabbing his spear right towards the middle of the monster’s eye.

Moreover, right as it was about to penetrate, a small rune appeared in front of the spear, and as it passed through it, the spear blade turned blistering hot as it pierced into the eye.