With a roar, he ran as soon as he reached the ground, streaking across the ash and rocky scree. His fist blazed like a comet as he ran, and it soon grew to eclipse his form. Finally, he dragged the true power of the Void into the world around him and his fist was crowned with a small patch of pure nothingness. With a thud, his fist slammed into the monster’s chin, before the roiling power around it exploded.
The beast was rocked off its feet, a good portion of its head missing, and it fell onto its back, twitching. It was still alive, but in a far weakened state. More importantly, its vulnerable underbelly was exposed to Jonathan’s attacks. He descended like a whirlwind, powering his strikes with the pain that coursed across his body like molten lava. His fists sunk into the monster’s stomach, tearing it apart with every powerful blow.
A few minutes later, the monster was dead, and only as the essence entered him, sending him up two ranks, did Jonathan let out a sigh of relief and fall backwards, letting the levels heal him. It was a close thing, and even with his relatively minor injuries, the levels barely did enough to tide him over. He would really have to look into a healing skill before long, which might be hard with his Void mana. However, he would have to find a way, as if there would be no more healing after reaching Tier 2, then he would be in dire straits.
It seemed that the fight had drawn monsters from the surrounding area, as he could hear a few howls coming from the west. Probably just mundane Ash Prowlers, but one could never be too careful. Jonathan got to his feet and kept running, seeking out his next foe.
Day turned to night as he ran, and he wandered for tens of miles without finding another Tier 2. There were plenty of weaker monsters, but they did not give him enough essence to be worth killing. Finally, he found an Ashwalker striding across the rocks, heading in a direction unknown to Jonathan. Its titanic strides caused the earth to shake beneath it, and Jonathan could sense it even before he saw it. This one was even stronger than the first one had been, and it was easily over a hundred and fifty feet tall. Its body was a lot more muscular as well, and the stone seemed to have been compacted in order to provide the greatest possible defense. This would be a tough fight, but one that would get him to the brink of Tier 2.
Jonathan cautiously made his way towards the monster, beginning to enhance himself. The creature was oblivious to his presence, likely thinking him to be of no consequence, like a human would an ant. Of course, there was the possibility that it was so large that it simply had not noticed him yet. Seeing such a huge creature was a very interesting experience. There was no way that such a thing should have been possible under the laws of physics, but then again, he was in a world where people could fly and possessed the power to level cities. If the laws of physics still reigned, they did so with a very loose grip. In any case, it hardly mattered, and Jonathan was able to make his way to the creature’s foot before too long passed.
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It stepped with regular intervals, and at this range, Jonathan’s body vibrated within his armor. It would have incapacitated a weaker man, but Jonathan was far too powerful. Still, this was allowing him to get up close and personal with the monster, and when he struck, it came at a time that the creature was not prepared.
When one of its feet was up, Jonathan’s fist slammed into its other foot, using all of his enhancements, causing the creature to stumble. He struck again, and it fell, crashing down on its back. The monster writhed for a moment, trying to right itself, but it was too heavy to do so easily. Jonathan rushed up its abdomen and began to whale on its face, sending cracks across the stone. It was even tougher than the last one had been, but not too tough that he could not damage it.
The monster began to right itself a few moments later, and slapped at its face, trying to catch Jonathan. He vaulted off it before it could do so however, and landed softly on the ground beside it. As the beast rose onto its feet, he targeted the same leg as earlier, slamming his fist into the cracks that had been formed last time. The Ashwalker stumbled, and almost fell, but this time it caught itself on a pillar of rock that surged out of the ground. It tore the pillar out of the earth and swung it like a club at Jonathan. The air hissed around the weapon, and he only barely avoided it.
As it hit the ground, the world was rent with a thunderous bang, and the pillar shattered, but not before creating a hundred foot wide crater in the ground. Jonathan was carried backwards by a bow wave of force, just missing the chunks of super accelerated rock that headed his way.
The golem started to create another pillar, and it grasped this one too, getting ready to use it on Jonathan. There was only one thing for it. He needed to allocate some of his stat points. 54 each went into Strength and Dexterity, his fallback stats for things like this and they both surged up by 90 points with all of his bonuses, causing him to grow noticeably in strength. However, the effect was less than it would have been before given how strong he was already. Soon the effects of his free points would be diminished to the point of nothing, at least until he upgraded his class. He had no idea what Tier 2 would bring, but it was safe to assume that he would be getting some more stat points per level.