As they went, Jonathan tried to consolidate the insights that he had received onto the nature of reality during the vision, realizing that what he had learned could be applied to more than a single skill. In learning that one could draw upon the actual concept that corresponded to their element, Jonathan had just gained a significant weapon in his arsenal. In the future, he could use this to work wonders of destruction. The Void was a uniquely powerful element, and Jonathan was looking forward to seeing how it turned out. He could sense that it would be spectacular.
A few minutes later, they had reached the nearest island, after having battled a few more of the monsters, gaining another level in the process. They were now past the halfway mark, but not yet in the clear. Jonathan remembered that the lake grew harder and harder to traverse the further that one went. They would need to be careful here.
Half an hour later, Jonathan and Edgar were bruised and battered, but had traversed more the lake, navigating the monster infested waters. Jonathan had come to realize that his new skill, while limited in scope for now, instilled such fear in nearby monsters that the weaker ones would retreat rather than fight him. Seeing the purest form of destruction there was created terror in the minds of mortals, and these monsters were no different, to the point where it overloaded their System programming, actually making some of them flee.
However, the stronger monsters were still able to attack, as some of them were nearing Tier 2 in power. Monstrous fiery eels slithered around the two men, burning them with great exhalations of fiery energy. Strange cetacean creatures surfaced beneath them, trying to swallow them whole, like Jonathan’s namesake, Jonah. However, he fended them off, and Edgar picked up the slack.
While the man was weaker than Jonathan, he was still an elite among Tier 1s, and he was more than capable of holding his own. Edgar was a man, who if not traveling with Jonathan, would have been the center of his own story. As it was, he was about the equivalent of 20 levels weaker than Jonathan, which, while not that much, was still significant enough to show a clear divide between the two men. Wind was a difficult element to use for offense, and the fact that Edgar was able to damage monsters readily with it showed the power of his elemental connection and his mana. However, the Hells were a breeding ground for the truly powerful, and it seemed that Jonathan had gotten the most out of them.
By the time that they had reached the end of the lake, they had left a trail of corpses in their wake, and if the lava had been water, it would have been dyed red with blood. As they reached the shore, the air cracked in front of them, revealing the same demonic creature as had been here last time, except it was a bit larger than before, and wielded a different weapon. This demon held a halberd, one that crackled with dark lightning, centered around its blade. The demon itself was about ten feet tall and extremely muscular, wearing nothing on its chest. However, its legs were protected by a set of metal plate leggings, and Jonathan frowned at the strange fashion decision. Either this monster was some mess up on the System’s part, or it was sap-
“You have come this far, but you will go no further,” the demon declared, in a deep, sonorous voice.
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“You can speak?” Edgar replied in shock, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Do you think a beast as magnificent as me would be left bereft of sapience? You are a fool.”
The demon surged forwards a moment later, its halberd held outstretched, ready to slice into someone's flesh. Jonathan got in the way of the strike, letting Edgar fall back, and he parried it with his left gauntlet before sending a straight right into the demon’s face.
The creature grunted, and weaved around the blow, trying to drive its halberd into Jonathan’s side. However, Jonathan moved in, rendering the weapon useless, and headbutted the creature, leaping up to reach its face. The monster stumbled backwards, bleeding heavily, and Jonathan whipped a punch into its abdomen. Behind him, Edgar charged up an attack, and the demon roared, exploding with energy. Red power rose up from its skin, looking like bloody red mist.
It pushed Jonathan back with the energy, and then rushed in, heading for Edgar, who it knew to be the weaker of the two. Edgar was ready for it now however, and a large spear of concentrated wind shot out of his hands, imbued with a tiny bit of his newfound conceptual control. When it struck the demon, the creature was tossed back far further than it should have, as if its body had been lightened by the attack. Edgar dropped his hands, panting, and Jonathan raced after the flying demon, gathering energy into his fist. It glowed with mingled purple and red power, and Jonathan sent a little bit of his conceptual energy into it, which did not create a visible effect, as it was colorless.
The demon came down a few seconds later, but Jonathan was ready for it, and he hammered the monster into the ground, detonating the energy surrounding his fist. There was a shockwave, and the creature was blasted down into the stone, creating a large crater. A chunk of its torso was missing, and Jonathan could only attribute that to his new skill.
However, the monster thrust up its halberd in the blink of an eye, aiming for the weak spots in his armor from the fights in the capital. It was still marred by a few holes, and the halberd flew into one of them, skewering his flesh. Jonathan tensed his muscles, and managed to stop the halberd from going in too deep, but the lightning surrounding it carried on, locking up his body. His skin melted, and the demon slowly got to its feet, grinning.
The monster threw him off its halberd, tossing him high into the air. As he came down, the beast bent low, gathering up power in its halberd. As he neared the ground, the monster swung, sending the weapon on a blurring arc towards his head. Jonathan blocked it with his gauntlet, punching out to mitigate the force. Surprised by the strength in Jonathan’s blow, the monster stumbled backwards, its halberd quivering from the impact.
Jonathan ran forwards, and sent three punches into its stomach in the blink of an eye, lifting the monster off its feet. His eyes were slits of stony determination now, and he whaled on the monster, not letting it get an opening. The monster used its shockwave skill again, tossing Jonathan back, but Edgar filled the gap, sending another spear of wind into the monster’s face. Jonathan got to his feet a moment later, and was upon the monster, slamming it viciously into the ground. The fact that he was dominating a being four feet taller than him was not lost on Jonathan, and he smiled weakly.
He battered the monster into the ground, sending spurts of ichor every way as he did so. The monster tried to get up, but Jonathan was in the zone now, and he absolutely obliterated the monster’s defenses with his superior stats. A few moments later, the creature was dead, and Jonathan gave it one more devastating punch for good measure, slamming its head into the stone with enough force to crack it open like a watermelon.