13-Fighting Hollows

It has been exactly ten years since Swain had that terrible nightmare.

Swain, during this time, tried to get stronger and stronger.

Of course, he had to kill someone to get stronger.

His first and ultimate goal was the lizard men. He slaughtered every lizard man village he found around and quickly moved away from that area.

The reason for this was his fight with Scar. As far as he understood, every village paid taxes to the empire at certain intervals.

This tax was not any currency, instead the empire took water from the villages.

In this incredibly large cave, water resources were very limited and the empire could not monopolize them all.

Because of this, instead of trying to monopolize the water resources, they made agreements with the villages and took some water from them every week.

The amount of water the empire took every week varied according to the population of the villages.

The empire provided protection to the villages in exchange for water, but they were not successful in this... at least after Swain appeared.

Swain, since he came to this world, destroyed countless villages and killed lizard men.

The empire reacted to this in a short time and assigned elite guards to the villages. In addition, there was a group of powerful lizard men who followed Swain's trail and tried to kill him.

First of all, let's talk about the elite guards assigned to the villages.

These guards, they all had their own special names and their powers were on the same level as Scar, and some of them were even stronger than Scar.

Of course, this was not a problem for Swain. After all, he had mastered the death hand spell and his demon energy reserves had grown a lot.

Based on demon energy, he was now equal to a second-level divine being.

Although his energy level was the same as a second-level divine being, Swain's power and destructiveness were far above a second-level being.

The real problem here was the lizard man group behind him. The group, although only ten people, was a big threat to Swain.

Swain had to engage in a clash with this group once and he barely managed to escape from this clash with heavy wounds.

All members of the group drew power from the dark dimension, strengthened their weapons and increased their physical strength.

The power of each member of the group was equal to a third-level divine being.

In fact, in a one-on-one fight, Swain could easily kill the members of the group, but the group was very coordinated and experienced.

They never left their friends alone and entered the clashes with an incredible harmony.

That's why Swain stopped trying to kill them and tried to avoid them as much as possible.

Swain, because of the group chasing him, rarely raided the villages, which greatly reduced the speed of his demon energy rising.

"If I want to get stronger quickly, I have to hunt Hollows." Swain said, with a thoughtful expression on his face. Right now, he was sitting on a rock in a dark corner. In his hand, he had a silver spear that was two meters long.

Ever since he came to this world, he had avoided Hollows. The reason was that Hollows were a dangerous and unknown threat.

The Hollow threat had not emerged for 50 years and this meant that the knowledge about them was quite insufficient.

That's why, Swain, instead of going to the depths of the cave, had chosen to go along the edges, but today, he would change that.

Swain's goal was to get stronger quickly and right now, killing Hollows was less risky than killing lizard men. On top of that, Hollows were richer in terms of soul.

Thus, Swain got up from the rock he was sitting on and started to descend into the depths of the cave.

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All his attention was on his surroundings, against a possible danger.

...

It didn't take long for Swain to find a Hollow, in fact, the Hollow had found Swain.

As Swain walked in the cave, a Hollow that looked like a bat flew and attacked Swain.

Swain reacted at the last moment and raised his silver spear, blocking the Hollow's razor-like claws.

DING!

The claw and the silver spear collided in the air, sparks and a disturbing sound came out.

"BURN"

Swain pulled his spear and put some distance between him and the Hollow, whispering this word.

As soon as this word left Swain's mouth, the Hollow was surrounded by red flames and started to burn.

"ROAR!"

The bat roared in pain and ignoring the red flames on it, rushed towards Swain.

"You're coming to your death!"

Swain saw the Hollow flying towards him and jumped and lifted his spear in the air, swinging it with all his strength.

The spear hit the Hollow's shoulder and without any difficulty, created a large gash.

"ROARR!" the Hollow roared in pain and fell to the ground.

Swain landed on the ground with a big smile on his face and took a deep breath.

"That was pretty easy." Swain said.

At first, he thought that this fight would challenge him a bit, but apparently, he was worrying too much.

"I have to be quick and suck his soul." Swain said and turned around to see the Hollow's corpse.

But when he turned around, he couldn't help but frown. There was nothing where the Hollow's corpse should have been.

"ROAR!"

Swain was just thinking about how the Hollow's corpse disappeared when he heard a roar over him and the next moment, he felt a pain and pressure on his shoulders.

The Hollow dug its claws into Swain's shoulders and pushed him down hard, hitting the ground.

The ground cracked with Swain's impact and Swain's face had minor wounds.

"Damn bat." Swain hissed and was about to cast a spell when he heard another roar.

"ROAR!" This roar had a more disturbing tone.

The Hollow on top of Swain, before he could react, was hit by another Hollow from the side and flew away.

When the weight on him disappeared, Swain quickly got up and jumped to the side, trying to stay away from the fight between the two Hollows.

When Swain got far enough, he carefully looked at the new Hollow.

This Hollow had eight legs and was black in color. It was almost 6 meters tall and looked like a spider.

The only feature that distinguished it from spiders was the long and pointed tail where its abdomen should have been.

This tail was like a scorpion's and as far as Swain could see, the Hollow could use this tail to shoot poisonous energy.

The bat-shaped Hollow had already been hit on its wing and its entire wing had been eroded by the green energy and became unusable. On top of that, adding the big wound it had taken while fighting Swain, it was in a pitiful state right now.

The spider-shaped Hollow had a great advantage and the winner of this fight was almost certain to be it.

"First, I'll get rid of the spider, I'll deal with the weak one later."

Swain clenched his spear and approached the spider-shaped Hollow from behind, moving as quietly as possible, but his actions were stopped by someone else.

Swain, before he could understand what was going on, another Hollow sprang from the shadows and bit his right arm.

The Hollow that bit Swain's right arm was black in color and looked like a saber-toothed tiger, the only difference between them was that this Hollow had six legs and was definitely much stronger than the saber-toothed tiger.

"AAARRRGG! Damn it!" Swain groaned.

The Hollow did not let go of Swain's arm and swung its head quickly, hitting Swain from the ground to the ground.

Swain, after so many blows, dropped his silver spear and looked at the Hollow that bit his arm with an angry expression.

This Hollow was not as big as the others. It was about two meters tall, presumably.

"Congratulations, you managed to anger me!" Swain said, with an angry tone and activated the demon energy inside him.

In just a second, Swain had a new left arm. This arm looked very strong and spread an ominous air around it.

Swain had worked on his spells for ten years and improved them. Thanks to this, he could use the death hand in just a second.

"Do you want to bite this too?" Swain said, with an angry tone and swung his left arm, punching the Hollow's mask on its face.

The punch carried all of Swain's power and thanks to the demon energy around it, it was very powerful.

The punch hit the Hollow's face and cracked its mask from end to end.

"RRRRRROOOOOAAARRRRR!" The tiger-like Hollow let out a roar of anger and pain.

Swain took advantage of this roar and pulled his right arm out of the Hollow's mouth, throwing another punch.

Around the death hand, demon energy gathered and caused the air to glow ominously.

The death hand touched the Hollow's jaw as soon as it exploded with a demon energy and the Hollow's lower jaw, along with half of its mask, disappeared.

The tiger-shaped Hollow, before it fell to the ground, Swain sucked its soul.

When the Hollow's soul was sucked, its body turned to dust and flew away with the wind.

"No life energy?" Swain said, in a surprised way.

Normally, when he sucked a soul, he automatically sucked its life energy as well, but when he sucked this Hollow's soul, no life energy entered him.

"ROAR!"

Swain's thoughts were interrupted by a roar of pain.

"I'll think about this later, first I'll deal with these." he said and turned around, looking at the fight between the two Hollows.

The bat-like Hollow was already on its deathbed and lay on the ground with severe injuries.

The spider-shaped Hollow had lost one of its legs, but had no other wounds.

Swain was not surprised when he saw this scene, he was expecting it.

He raised his left arm and pointed his hand at the spider-shaped Hollow.

Around his arm, demon energy began to accumulate and just as the spider-shaped Hollow was about to turn around, a red energy beam came out of Swain's hand and made a fist-sized hole in the Hollow's neck and mask.

The spider-shaped Hollow collapsed and lay next to the other Hollow.

Swain pointed his left hand at them, made a fist and pulled it towards him.

Around the bat-like Hollow and the spider-like Hollow, an ominous-looking red energy formed and held them, pulling them towards Swain.

Swain looked at the two Hollow corpses in front of him and touched them, sucking both of their souls.

"It seems that my guesses were right. Hollows are dead beings, so they have no life energy." Swain said and turned around, heading towards the lizard man villages.

His right arm looked like a dough and was badly injured. If he wanted to heal quickly, he had to kill a few lizard men.

"I gained experience." Swain said before disappearing into the shadows.