Maxing out aether throughout his body and sword, the boy bursts into a dash toward the scuttling swarm.

His fast perception quickly spots a gap in the outer layer of the aligned darklings and he exploits it.

As he steps between the slow and clumsy bugs, his suit erupts into a blazing blue fire, trying to protect him from the numerous assortments of fangs and claws.

The wave of darklings hit his body from the side like a tsunami, threatening to sweep him under their ranks.

“Must….hold!”

His thoughts falter under the strain of his exertion as he pushes back against the legion of insectoids.

His sword, sticking out his side, impales into a pushing darkling and it starts screeching from pain.

But the darklings behind it continue to push, oblivious or uncaring to the screams of their sibling right in front of them.

The boy manages to squeeze a few steps forward, slicing through the screeching darkling as he shuffles forward.

As he does so, the screeching darkling stops its screeching and drops dead with its blood and innards leaking out its open wound.

The scent of its blood pheromones travels through the surrounding darklings, breaking them out of their mindless shuffling.

Their waves of neat formation begin breaking down as these darklings raise a havoc, trying to chase the source of the pheromones.

They clash into the clueless darklings at their sides, trying to knock them out of the way to carve a path toward the boy and his blood coated sword.

The disturbance causes a congestion in the tsunami like wave of darklings, relieving the pressure over the boy.

“It’s…getting easier to push through.”

Not realizing he was responsible for this change but welcoming it all the same, he picks up his pace while pushing through.

A few paces forward another darkling blindly storms into his blade and impales itself.

He glances toward it and sees its snapping maw inches from his face. It thrashes against his body with its claws but he quickly kills it with a twist and slice of his blade through its exoskeleton.

Black blood erupts out of its cleaved body toward him, coating his face and suit.

All the darklings in his immediate surroundings stop in their track and turn their eyeless domes toward him. Behind them even more darklings were crawling over each other, trying to get to him.

“What? It was his fault.”

Immediately they rush toward him from all sides, their claws and maws ready to tear the opponent to shreds.

“I can’t get stuck down here, I need to get to the marking mist.”

Over the jagged tips of their curved claws and black domes he could spot more darklings squirting out black mist in the air a bit further ahead.

If he got bogged down here, it would be impossible to reach them.

But it was too late.

He was completely surrounded.

Forming a tight perimeter around him they start bringing down their claws down upon him in unison.

He severs most of them with quick light slashes but a few hit his blind spot behind him.

His trusty suit ignites its blue barrier, blocking those attacks. The impacts were light and he barely felt the force behind them.

Charging his blade and stepping forward, he unleashes a wide horizontal swing that cleaves through all the darklings in his front.

Their collective bodies burst out a pool of blood and experia (EXP), coating him and the darklings behind him.

This puddle of blood, in turn, releases an even stronger scent of pheromones that draws in another chunk of darklings from all sides.

The encirclement around the boy shrinks even further from the strong pressure of the darklings trying to reach him.

Infront of him, darklings climb over the line of their dead siblings and inch close to him.

On his sides they squeeze into his space, repeatedly hammering their charged claws on the DEF barrier of his suit.

The boy keeps slicing at them, killing a darkling with every swing but the strong push coming from their collective numbers squeeze the dead bodies into him.

In a few moments the space around him shrinks to a point where he can’t even swing his blade anymore.

“Okay, I might have looked down on them a little bit here. Thank god I don’t have a bug phobia.” He thinks, realizing he made an error of judgement.

The frenzied darklings surrounded him from all directions but not just on the floor, in their agitation they were climbing on top of each other so they were also covering all sides above him as well.

They were like ants, scuttling over every available square inch of surface to attack their prey.

Enclosed inside this living black dome of bugs, the boy was under relentless assault from all directions. The darklings were raining down their collective claws upon him dozens of times a second without pause.

His entire body was a blaze of blue fire as his DEF aether repelled all incoming attacks. He felt the needling sensations of their piercing claws on every part of his body, his head, his face, his arms, his chest, his back, his legs, and even his feet.

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But that’s all he felt, there was little pain, just the uncomfortable sensation of countless pins needling his skin.

He tries to raise his sword to slice the darklings squeezing into him but their collective strength keeps him from moving.

“So, this is how they fight, by smothering their prey and stabbing it to death. With numbers like these that’s a viable strategy alright.”

Despite his current predicament, the boy was calm. He knew for a fact that the darklings would not be able to breakthrough the protective DEF aether of his suit.

He was more worried about suffocating under their pressure than actually being stabbed from their claws.

Channeling the full extent of his ATK aether through his body, he stops trying to raise his sword and instead thrashes against the walls of darklings, trying to squeeze out.

The darklings inch back from his sudden bout of strength but quickly squeeze back into him with their maws greedily snapping.

He writhes and twists against their combined strain, frantically trying to create an opening to force out of the stinging dome but the darklings refuse to budge.

“Fuck, I’m not strong enough to break free.”

His nostrils flare with the stench of the darklings clinging onto him, and he could feel his breath getting shorter.

If he stayed trapped inside their numbers then he really would suffocate to death.

“What a stupid way to go.”

Inwardly he was debating releasing the first shot of chemicals from the nozzles overhead. It would most certainly set him free but wasting a shot like this prematurely may later prove to be lethal.

This was just the start of the darkling siege. There were hundreds if not thousands still waiting outside this facility and there were about 6 or 7 hours left in the night.

Deep down he knew he would need to place all the shots strategically if he wanted to win.

“I can’t waste a shot on something like this.”

The darklings around him kept attacking without break, their claws hitting his DEF barrier, retracting, and then hitting again all over his body.

The constant needling sensation was angering him. He violently thrust against their numbers, but with all his strength he could only push them back a few inches.

Since he didn’t have enough space to raise his arms, they were fixed at his sizes. His sword was in his hand, pointing downward.

A darkling on his right side lands its claw across his face, stinging his cheek. Unable to bear the constant needling, this strike sets off an explosive rage within the boy.

“That’s it, that’s fucking it.”

Gathering up his ATK aether, he tackles the wall of darklings on his right side, pushing them back a few inches.

In the tiny window of time before they squeeze back in, he pulls his sword arm up with all his strength, the blade carving through the darkling in front of him which starts screeching.

Then he does the same on his left side, pushing the darklings a few inches and pulling up his free left arm to grab the hilt of his sword with both hands.

The sword was now horizontally raised up to his head, its blade impaled inside a now-dead darkling on his side.

“I’m gonna carve a path out of these damn bugs.”

His plan was simple, he was going to slice through the wall of darklings on his side, one at a time. Even though there were dozens more lining up behind the living wall.

This not so bright plan was fueled entirely by his rage which was now threatening to erupt from the constant stabbings and biting.

Under the raining strikes of claws and stinging sensations of bites, he starts extending and retracting his arms, trying to saw through the dead darkling.

However, as he is sawing with his head turned toward the blade, a darkling in front of him strikes his ear with its claw.

Of course, the claw doesn’t penetrate his skin or tear off his ear, but he feels a sharp stinging sensation that travels through his ear and into his brain.

The burning pain causes him to rage even more and he yells out a battle cry while tightening his grip on his sword.

As he does, something strange happens. The aetherial aura around his body rapidly swells outward, growing in size, volume, and density.

The aether channeling into his sword surges wildly and the shining emblem on its hilt glows even more fiercely.

From this emblem, red aetherial tendrils quickly start flowing up along the fuller of the sword’s blade, further increasing its shine.

Once they reach the curvature of its tip, the lines converge together before erupting out of his sword like a laser beam.

“What…the!?”

Startled by the phenomena, the boy pushes the sword’s hilt away from his face, swaying the shining blade from left to right.

This causes the beam coming out of the sword’s tip to swing as well.

It cuts through the wall of darklings immediately in front of him and the darklings crawling behind them, extending to a full length of about 3 meters.

Not realizing what is happening, the boy rotates the sword’s hilt in his hands, twirling the glowing blade upward.

The beam follows the blade’s trajectory and tears through the wall of darklings as it flows upward.

A second after pointing his blade up, the beam dissipates and the shine on his sword returns to normal.

In total the beam had lasted about 3 seconds.

As the boy is wondering what that was all about, a drop of black blood falls on his nose. He looks up to find all the darklings that were making up the barrier at his side dead. Their bodies were split open, leaking their experia, blood and guts.

He feels a tremendous rush of experia entering his body as the collective dead pile begins to sway uneasily, their sliced bodies breaking apart in front of his eyes.

“It’s gonna fall.”

Utlilizing the opening caused by the strange phenomenon, he gives the barrier of dead darklings one final shove and it crashes outward away from him.

Streams of black blood with floating organs flow outward as he finally jumps out of the dome made of giant creepy bugs and onto the now-black coated floor of the spacious containment chamber.

All around him, darklings were scuttling erratically, confused by the overflowing pheromones from the black blood pooling everywhere.

They could no longer make out their targets in all this bloody mess.

Free of the stench and feeling the clean cool air on his face, the boy breaths heavily.

“*pants* I thought I was *pants* gonna die from the *pants* stench in there.”

Behind him the dome shaped ball of darklings collapses completely as the darklings disengage and pull out of the structure, confused and overstimulated by the overflowing pheromones of their dead.

Regaining his breath, the boy refocuses on his surroundings.

The beam had extended quite a bit from where he was standing and had not only cut through the darklings making up the barrier but also all the darklings standing behind them within a 3-meter range.

The rest of the darklings around him were behaving abnormally.

Some were just standing completely still in place. Presumably overstimulated by the overflowing pheromones. Others were scurrying all over the place, their claws flailing up and down attacking the empty space in front of them.

He looks toward the entrance to note the rest of the swarm and finds the majority have moved on from the drones. They were now forming a wide perimeter around the blood bath he had just caused. Although, the number of the floating security drones was now down to four.

“Wasn’t exactly a part of the plan but I’m not complaining.”

He hadn’t made contact with the black liquid marking they were squirting out but thanks to the beam it had all worked out.

The swarm was advancing further into the chamber, albeit just around the giant pool of black blood he was standing in, but it was a start.

There were more darklings crawling out of the hole in the entrance gate so the fight was nowhere near its end, but now he had another weapon in his arsenal.

Looking around at the damage the beam had generated, he knew he had to have it at all costs.

He wasn’t sure but he had an inkling where it had come from when he remembered the chart that Arya had showed him.

Mana (MP)

A small amount of purified aether inside the core that can boost the power of the other aether sections to perform powerful techniques. There is only a limited amount and it recharges either after a full night’s sleep or by eating specific supplements.

“Did I unconsciously use Mana?”

It was the most likely explanation for what had happened. He had felt a brief spell of weakness and dizziness when the beam shot out of his sword. It must be his stratus core using up some of the mana inside him.

“If I remember correctly, my mana was 93, I wonder how much did I use up?”

Staring at the busy swarm of darklings establishing a wide boundary around him he imagines the beam slicing through their length, and grins.

“Looks like this fight can be over sooner than I was expecting.”