Luckily, he could absorb experience cards in the middle of the battle. Cole needed to absorb two more experience cards in order to level up, so he continued his rampage.
He pulled his sword and jumped to another ant, but the ant parried his sword with its mandibles and threw him back.
As his body was in the air, Cole laughed in excitement. In his deathmatch arena, he was proud of his inhuman strength, and because of that, he rarely had satisfying battles. In here, however, powerful monsters were abundant, and many of them possessed threats for him.
Cole licked his lips as he was about to fall on an ant. He spun his body and severed the ant’s head, turning it into blue smoke. Luckily, it left an experience card, and he immediately absorbed it. With that, he only needed one more experience card to level up.
As his body landed on the ground, an ant suddenly approached from the left side, trying to ram him with its hard head. However, Cole blocked it, placing his greatsword in front of him. He used the flat of the sword to hold the ant’s head.
The ant kept pushing him, making him busy with it. At the same time, another ant came behind him and sliced his right hip with its mandible.
Cole gritted his teeth, and veins popped out of his face. Luckily, the scar wasn’t deep, but his HP kept decreasing gradually. At the same time, he got a notification from the system that the bleeding buff affected him. If he kept getting the same attacks from their mandibles, he would die out of blood loss eventually.
He didn’t want to die. He had barely achieved anything in this world.
Cole roared as explosiveness surged from inside him, and he punched the ant that had attacked him, cracking its carapace. As he started to become out of control, more ants were coming at him.
Cole pivoted his waist as he killed several ants with one horizontal slash. Many cards floated out of their corpses, and he took them. He absorbed one more experience card and retreated to the river.
You have leveled up.
Name: Cole Zander (Level: 3 [25/375])
You have opened one skill slot.
Cole read the passive skill card he had gotten as he was running toward the river. He didn’t want to absorb skills carelessly because he could only absorb passive skills. Furthermore, Cole had to wait until level 6 and then every 6 level to gain more slots.
Skill: [Ruin Gust]
Effect: When attacked, has a 35% chance to bring powerful gust from the Ruin Realm, dealing pure damage to all nearby enemies.
Cole smiled. This was a perfect passive skill for his current situation. If he triggered the effect, he could damage many enemies at once. He decided to absorb it.
The card turned into smoke and entered his body, filling his skill slot. He suddenly stopped running and faced his enemies again. He wanted to take a gamble by triggering the effect of this skill.
Cole stabbed an ant in the skull, pulled his sword back, and slashed the enemy behind him. An ant managed to stab his back, and Cole arched his back, piercing its skull from above.
After killing it, Cole staggered, and the sword in his hands became heavier. This weakly condition only lasted for a second before the effect of [Injury Transmutation] kicked in and enhanced his overall physique.
Cole looked at his HP bar and it was filling up faster, meaning he could continue his rampage. Grinning, he rushed at an ant.
As he killed an ant, another one slashed his thighs and triggered [Ruin Gust]. A red helix was revolving around Cole and hitting nearby enemies.
So this is the effect of the [Ruin Gust], he thought.
While the effect was still active, Cole used this chance to leap into a spot where most ants gathered, killing them in an instant. After several seconds, the helix vanished.
Seeing him with no protection, ants ganged upon him again. Thanks to [Injury Transmutation], he could tank their attacks. He endured and waited for the skill to appear again. After a while, the red helix appeared again out of thin air and revolved around him.
Time passed. No more monster came to him from the hill, and his enemies were all dead. Cole sat on ground and controlled his breath. He put a wide smile on his face. He didn’t know what other people thought, but this place was heaven for him. No guilt and free rampage.
Cole looked at twenty-seven cards he had gotten from those ants. He had got ten level-two experience cards, five level-three experience cards, one level-five experience card, seven loot cards, and four point cards.
Cole couldn’t absorb the level-two experience cards, so he planned to sell them to people that had come to this world at the same time with him. He glanced at the building over the river. People were getting out of the building and killing Frenzy Rabbits.
After looking at them, Cole rejected the idea of selling the cards to them because they could just get them easily by killing monsters. So, he threw all level-two experience cards to the ground.
The loot cards were useless too. If he needed it, he could hunt those Goliath Ants anytime, so he dumped them to the ground too. The only cards left in his hands were high-level experience cards and point cards. Cole absorbed them at once.
Name: Cole Zander (Level: 3 [325/375])
Stolen story; please report.
Currency Point: 60
Cole stood up and walked to the hill again. The sun was still high, so he planned to hunt as many as he could until night.
On the top of the hill, he observed those ants and confirmed the strongest ants were only level five.
Cole ran to the valley. His HP was far from full, but the current him had enhancement from [Injury Transmutation]. He jumped into the middle of enemies and killed one level-three ant. The corpse let out of an experience card, and he immediately absorbed it.
Name: Cole Zander (Level: 4 [0/500])
His HP was full again because of the benefit of level up, but it made him panic. There was no enhancement from [Injury Transmutation] anymore. He had to escape.
Cole jumped from an ant to another ant in order to escape, but they climbed atop each other and trapped him. An ant kicked him, and it activated [Ruin Gust]. Cole managed to land on his feet, and he ran again as he picked every card from dead ants on his way.
After a while, Cole arrived at the top of the opposite hill, the one that led to the forest. He miraculously arrived at the destination, but the ants were still chasing him, climbing the hill in order to reach him.
For a moment, he thought of running into the forest, but he didn’t know what powerful monsters awaited him on there. He realized coming to the forest was a reckless idea, so he ran down the hill again.
As he arrived in the valley again, more ants came out of the holes, making Cole difficult to get past them. A wave of ants befell upon him and swarmed him with attacks. Cole’s HP kept decreasing as he supported his feet to keep standing by thrusting his greatsword to the ground. His skin turned redder, and he felt explosive power in his muscles. He pulled his sword, spun one time, and pushed those ants away. His HP was close to zero, so he ran straight to the hill and didn’t bother about nearby cards anymore.
Ants kept chasing him, and he spotted a level-six winged ant. Cole put one free point on agility, increasing his speed. He got away from every ant except the winged one, but he felt assured as he arrived at the riverbank. Without hesitation, he jumped into the river.
The winged ant floated above the river for a while, but it didn’t dare to lower its altitude, so it came back to the hills.
Cole got out of the river after the winged ant disappeared behind the hill. He suddenly didn’t have the mood to hunt after he had attracted stronger monsters, so he decided to see people’s condition on the other side.
Cole watched people struggling against rabbits. He wouldn’t have thought there was a day he could become a spectator of death fights. It was as thrill-inducing as getting himself in a real death fight. No wonder many people liked to watch people fight to death.
A group of five people jumped to the river and traversed to the second prairie. They spotted Cole and approached him. They were none other than the lightning young man and his teammates. His members comprised the barrier man, the healer, and two melee attackers.
The skinny man smiled at him. “I was wrong about you. You are strong.”
Cole nodded. “Thanks.”
“I saw many floating cards behind you. I suppose you killed monsters. Where did you find them?”
Cole pointed his thumb at the hills. They thanked him once again and went to the hills. He had angered stronger ants, but Cole didn’t stop their curiosity to check the place. Each had its own business. Besides, he remembered when the skinny guy had killed a man for a petty reason. The man’s followers might not be bad people, but they still followed the man after knowing about his character.
Cole lay on the ground. No other groups traversed the river. They were cowering in the building after fighting rabbits for a few times. Getting bored, he decided to rest for a while. He closed his eyes while keeping his guard up. If opponents came to him, he was ready anytime.
When Cole opened his eyes, it was already evening. He got up and walked to the hills again. Looking down, he saw no ant anymore.
Cole had been waiting for this moment. After killing many ants, He had got advanced knowledge about Goliath Ant in his system. They were inactive from twilight until dawn, so he ambled down the valley. It was the chance to go to the forest safely.
On the way, Cole found many things in the surroundings. There were weapons, trails of blood, cards, and torn clothes. He suspected the skinny man’s group had fought those ants and died. He knelt and clasped his hands in prayer. After that, Cole picked their weapons and turned them into equipment cards. He might have a chance to sell them in the future.
Cole was lucky to get a woman's sling bag. He stored cards in it. After that, he absorbed one experience card and four point cards.
Name: Cole Zander (Level: 4 [50/500])
Currency Point: 100
Cole continued his walk to the opposite hill and faced the forest. He finally could enter his next destination without ants chasing him, but he needed to act carefully. Goliath Ants might be active in the day, but it wasn’t necessarily the same for other monsters.
Cole gripped his greatsword. He couldn’t find out anything if he stayed here. He wanted to progress, so he could only go on. With raging determination, he entered the forest.
Cole might be a ferocious beast in people’s eyes, but even he didn’t know what to do in the forest. Weeds and scrubs grew everywhere, preventing him from seeing further ahead. Sun would sink completely in a few minutes, and sunlight would be gone. Some monsters might have night vision, so wandering at night would put him in a disadvantaged position. Many thoughts flowed into his mind, and Cole found himself back on the hill again.
“I can’t throw away my life carelessly. I like this world.”
Cole planned to come back tomorrow in the day. He had passed through waves of ants. He could do it once again.
Cole was about to walk down the valley when he heard a rustle from the forest. A giant beast with long legs stood behind him. It had thick white furs with black stripes. Its head was long, and hose-like tongues came out of its mouth.
Cole turned back and recognized this monster from an animal channel he had watched on the TV. It was an anteater. However, this anteater was different from the same specimen on Earth. The one in front of him was three times taller than him.
Cole immediately looked at the screen above it, and his expression turned grim. The monster was level eight. He didn’t overestimate himself and immediately ran down the valley. As expected, the giant anteater chased him.
After running for a while, Cole finally arrived at the riverside. However, the giant anteater still chased him even after he plunged into the water, so he kept swimming to another side.
In the middle of the river, he saw something jumping out of the water, and its image became clear as the silhouette clutched onto the anteater’s body. It was a scaled humanoid with the head of a piranha. It wasn’t alone. More of them came from nowhere and approached him too. Each of them was level six.
Cole swung his sword at one of them, but his attack only left a shallow cut. He didn’t want to injure himself anymore today just to boost his strength, so he focused on swimming to another side. Luckily, the anteater behind him went berserk and swung its tongue at them like a whip. Those water humanoid piranhas changed their target to the anteater and let Cole escape.
As Cole reached the land, Frenzy Rabbits rushed to him. Unlike ants, they seemed to be active at night too. Cole swung his sword like a madman as he ran to the building. He might have gotten stronger, but he needed a shelter to rest at night.
The rabbits only left shallow scars on him, and the [Ruin Gust] easily got rid of them. After a while, Cole reached the building safely, and he immediately knocked on the door.
“Someone. Can you open the door?”
“NO! You come with rabbits. Stay away from us!”
Cole only sighed. He couldn’t complain when he had never helped them too. He saw many cards from rabbits’ corpses, and an idea came to his mind.
“Let’s make a deal. You open the door, and I will help you hunt experience cards.”
There was no reply for a while, but Cole didn’t rush them, even though rabbits kept attacking him. After a while, the door opened a bit, and he slipped past it.