From one bridge to another, they traversed down the path of fire with the ease of a river. Gabriel took away the monsters' attention, while Naomi cast his deadly spells.

One blighted miner was slain!

[ Rewards: Rusty Pickaxe ]

Two blighted miners were slain!

[ Rewards: Blighted Fire Fragment (2x); Rusty Pickaxe ]

Three blighted miners were slain!

[ Rewards: Minor Mana Potion; Blighted Fire Fragment (2x); Rusty Pickaxe ]

"Woah!" Naomi said as he eyed their loot. "I guess it's just like earning a large combo chain in a videogame. The more monsters we slay in rapid succession, the higher quality loot we'll get!"

"Well then? Why waste our time with chitchat when we could slay even more?"

"Hold on!" Naomi looked at his Sigil. "My level increased and I got some skill points to spend. Speaking of, you should check your level!"

"Oh, right... Thanks for reminding me." Gabriel said with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Even though they have slain three more zombies, his level remained the same.

[ Name: Gabriel ]

[ HP: 20/20 ]

[ MP: 5/5 ]

[ Class: Warrior/Demon ]

[ Level: 1 (19/20) ]

[ Strength: 10 ]

[ Dexterity: 8 ]

[ Sturdiness: 10 ]

[ Intelligence: 10 ]

[ Souls: 2.5 ]

One of the zombies gave less experience than the others, thus resulting in Gabriel getting to know one of the worst feelings imaginable: missing just one experience point from leveling up.

"At least my souls have increased, whatever they are good for…"

Suddenly, he felt something strange, a presence. Gabriel swiftly looked around with a hand on his rapier...

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But there was no one else besides Naomi, still stuck with deciding which attribute he should increase.

"Huh." Gabriel lowered his guard. "I guess it was just my imagination."

He turned his back against where they come from.

The moment he was not looking, the large rock behind him stood up with chicken legs that raised it way above the ground.

Gabriel felt its presence again.

"What…?" But as he looked around, there was nothing to see.

When the stone monster saw that Gabriel would turn around, it dropped to the ground and disguised himself as an ordinary rock. It was the perfect disguise that would have fooled any ordinary man.

However, Gabriel was nothing like that.

"!!!" The rock monster panicked as Gabriel approached it with a rapier in hand.

"Strange." Gabriel said, towering above the rock. "I could have sworn this was not here before. But how so? It feels like my perception has become better for some strange reason. Or perhaps I'm just imagining things? Well, I guess there is only one way to find out!"

Gabriel raised his foot to kick the stone, but just as he did…

"Grawr!" The rock monster jumped forward! Finally, it revealed that disgusting mouth and eerily long tongue it was hiding!

Was it a corrupted clam or a chaos-infected stone? Only one thing was clear about this monster: it was the mockery of earth itself! It needed to be destroyed!

But despite its dramatic existence, it was pretty weak. Gabriel punched the monster in the face and sent it flying through the bridge.

"Ouch." Gabriel shook the pain off of his hand. Despite how weak it was, that monster still hid inside a stern shell.

The monster's body bounced off thrice from the ground as it rolled away. Still, it was far from being defeated.

The monster stretched its chicken legs and pushed its sharp claws into the ground. As soon as it stopped, the monster bent back before bursting into a maddened charge.

"Oh, come on!" Gabriel sighed with frustration. "What different results are you expecting from a repeated attack?"

The rock monster jumped into the air and opened its large mouth. The crystal-sharp teeth gleamed in its mouth as its tongue burst forward like a snake.

Defeating such a sturdy opponent would have been hard for the average human, but Gabriel was an experienced fighter.

Breaking through the air, Gabriel struck his rapier into the monster's mouth, stabbing through its organs and impaling it.

The beast did not move after that. The sudden shock was enough to kill it.

As Gabriel lowered his rapier, the monster slid off of his weapon and fell to the ground. The moment after, it was already a cloud of blue pixels, flying through the air.

"Oh, right. I forgot chaos monsters don't leave a corpse."

The rock monster gave him no loot. Its level was too low to have it bear any.

Still, Gabriel felt more than satisfied when he saw two messages appear before him.

[ You have leveled up! ]

[ You have leveled up! ]

His eyes shot up with excitement as the messages appeared.

"I leveled up twice?! Just how much experience did that monster give? Wait… That's just because I have two Sigils. I leveled up only one; that just means I had both my Sigils level up."

Frustrated, he slapped his hand onto his forehead.

"Nice way to ruin my excitement! Still, I shouldn't be so angry. My level has increased, which means that I'm that much closer to regaining my powers."

He took a deep breath to calm himself and focus on summoning his stat screen. However, something disturbed him.

It was another presence, but not just one. He felt tens, if not hundreds of them.

There was a large pile of rocks on one end of the bridge. It was always there, but it seemed like it had moved closer while Gabriel was not looking.

That rock pile bore a whole group of rock monsters. Even for Gabriel, there were way too many of them.

"Hey, Naomi!" Gabriel turned to warn him, only to see the other end of the bridge blocked by two equally large piles of stones.

Those were not there before.