This time, Lucas didn’t select the option to have his coach with him. He was still a little protective of his new skill and didn’t want anyone to find out yet, not even Aysha. He didn’t know how people would react, and he didn’t want to keep explaining himself too. Altogether, it was just too much of a hassle.

Besides, there was no need for his coach this time around, as he didn’t plan on training in boxing. No, what he wanted to do was to use his last experience fighting with the sword and the past week of boxing training and mix them all together, creating his own fighting style. And for that he needed opponents, and lots of them.

The elevator stopped, and the door opened. Lucas arrived at a pretty barren space, where only the ground and the blueish walls could be seen, nothing else in the horizon. In front of him, he saw three humanoid figures, all level 13. It had been a while since Lucas had seen one of them.

Vodyanoy — Lvl 13

Vodyanoy — Lvl 13

Vodyanoy — Lvl 13

They were the frog-man he had met in the Dark Forest when he was training with his Death Aura. Lucas remembered thinking they seemed to possess some sort of intelligence, and later he found out through Aysha that they were originally from her planet. She said that their intelligence was above those of the apes—which they also had in her planet—but lower than elves or humans, probably close to a Neanderthal.

Furthermore, she also said that they usually lived in swamps and stayed away from the modern society. She had a weird expression when talking about them, and after Lucas insisted on the subject, she ended up revealing that the elves weren’t exactly kind towards the Vodyanoy, refusing to say anything further. Lucas understood that from her point of view, she was partially responsible for whatever treatment the Vodyanoy received, since she was a part of the royalty, so she wasn’t comfortable talking about it, so Lucas dropped the subject. Lucas had said to her before that she wasn’t her family, but something that was ingrained in a person since birth was hard to overcome.

One thing that intrigued both of them when they talked about it was the fact that despite not having a class, that Vodyanoy that Lucas had met was level 15. Meaning they didn’t have the same limitation at level 10 that both Lucas and Aysha had. Lucas had known from books that only enlightened species needed to select a class to keep leveling up. Did that mean that the Vodyanoy wasn’t considered one, or did they just have different requirements?

According to Aysha, they communicated somewhat through a series of clicks their throats made that seemed incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. Apparently not even the system was able to translate it because Lucas didn’t understand a word they were saying back in the Dark Forest. She also said that they had some sort of culture, and even religion. Didn’t that mean that they were enlightened enough? Feeling that he wouldn’t find any answers so soon, Lucas shook these thoughts out of his head and looked at the figures in front of him.

Lucas looked at his opponents, feeling kind of bad for them. He had chosen them because he needed a challenge, and he wouldn’t be getting that from the regular beasts or the wooden dolls. He also didn’t want to pick humans or elves for this training session, because he needed to be merciless; his blade wasn’t like his fists, he couldn’t hold back with them.

The Vodyanoy just happened to be the perfect opponent for him; they were smart enough and had a humanoid form, but were also significantly different from humans to the point he wouldn’t feel so bad killing them. It was still a little messed up, and he still felt a little uneasy about it, even if they were NPCs, but he also knew that situations where he might have to kill people might present themselves again in the future. It had already happened to him once, and he wanted to be prepared in case it happened again.

He breathed deeply and focused, taking his blades out. He hadn’t seen them in a while and had only used them against wood; this would be their first real test, and now he would know for sure if they could assist him on his journey or if he would have to find another alternative.

“Start!” Lucas yelled after closing in on his opponents, and immediately they leaped towards him.

The first change Lucas noticed in his bone-blades was their resistance. With his increase in toughness thanks to his new equipment, they had undergone a great transformation and were now capable of defending him against the Vodyanoy claws. It wasn’t perfect, and after the fourth attack, he was already seeing some cracks in the glass, but he had gotten pretty used to the pain that came with breaking his blade, so that didn’t bother him too much.

When he couldn’t block, he dodged, but it was pretty hard to counter-attack fighting three opponents at once, however, one opportunity was all he needed, and after he dodged one of the Vodyanoy’s attacks, he purposefully moved towards another, catching him off guard. With a powerful swing, a head was sent flying, and the rest of Vodyanoy body fell to the ground, limply.

Lucas had no time to see it falling down, however, because the two others were already at his tail, in hot pursuit. When Lucas turned to face them, he saw that they weren’t only two, but four. He smiled.

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That had been one of the most expensive features of the selection he had made in the totem. Every time he killed one opponent, two more would appear in its place, guaranteeing him an endless amount of opponents. This was his idea to keep himself on his toes; every time he began to feel comfortable in the fight, difficulty would be added. It was just what he needed to prepare for this challenge, whatever it was he might face.

One of them clawed the air in front of him, sending waves of wind that cut his skin, producing blood on his chest. Lucas wasn’t too surprised by it, however, as that was also the only skill Victor had. In his case, he could send a wave of wind through a movement of his sword, sharp enough to make small cuts. Lucas guessed back then that it was the class skill he had picked, and the Vodyanoy in front of him had done something similar but with his claws instead.

That skill was a surprise coming from them, however, but nothing he couldn’t manage. After a while of getting use to fighting against four opponents at once, having found a good rhythm and becoming familiar with their moves, Lucas began to strike back again. The problem he found was that despite them not being nearly as coordinated as the wooden dolls, their cooperation began to improve as time passed, and it became harder for him to take the upper hand in the fight.

Back in his first fight with the Vodyanoy, he had only been able to win due to his new usage of the Death Aura, expanding them to encompass his weapon and granting them necrotic power. He had improved a lot since then, and he was already able to fight against four at once, but his stamina was also decreasing. He moved away from them and began to consider his situation.

He thought about using the necrotic effect of his death aura on his blades, but he felt it was still too early for that. If he did that, its power would eat away at his health points and it would put him in a difficult spot.

The Vodyanoy soon surrounded him. It was difficult to get any breather with the four of them after him, and they didn’t seem nearly as tired as he was. Lucas saw an opportunity after a few exchanges, and making use of his boost in agility due to his new boxing skill, he aimed for one of the Vodyanoy’s heads. However, this time, like all the previous times, he was blocked by one of the others.

Ever since he killed that first Vodyanoy, he hadn’t been able to land a fatal strike, thanks to the others who were always close by to protect each other. He had only been able to produce a few cuts and penetrate a few limbs with his punches, none of which did anything to slow them down. When one got injured, they just moved back while the others closed in, preventing him from taking any advantage of the injury. It was infuriating.

After their last barrage of attacks, however, Lucas had an idea. When a claw passed right by his side after one of his dodges, he made a sudden movement and managed to chop its hand off before it could fully retreat.

The creature produced a screeching sound as it backed away, and Lucas smiled. One less claw to deal with, he thought as he kept retreating. The best thing about this strategy was that it was hard for the Vodyanoys to adapt to it. Due to the nature of the training, they couldn’t simply leave him be or run away; they had to try to kill him all the time, only being able to make tactical retreats every now and then. Lucas went on to exploit the hell out of this loophole.

Pretty soon, the entire arena was filled with mangled limbs and blood, and Lucas was finally able to take a little rest. And just in time too, as his stamina was already pretty low. He looked at the scene in front of him as he caught his breath and took a stamina potion. Two of them had both their legs chopped off and were just staying on the ground, practically useless. The other two were standing in only one leg but had one of the arms missing as well. They had figured it out by now that it was better to just wait for him to attack instead of taking the initiative themselves. While they couldn’t retreat indefinitely, they could just stand there.

It didn’t surprise Lucas that it had taken so long for them to figure this out, because it was really counterintuitive for a group of four to take a defensive position and wait for one opponent to attack. Even if they had figured this out, however, it was useless, because Lucas didn’t plan on letting them share this information with the others that were to come. After he recovered most of his stamina, he finished them off easily, one after the other.

Eight others appeared in their place, and they wasted no time attacking Lucas with all they had. After only three minutes, Lucas began to wonder if he had bitten more than he could chew this time around, fighting against eight was much harder than against only four. He used every trick he knew to dodge, but he still took multiple hits, leaving his body covered with blood.

After a few more minutes, he had managed to decommission two of them by chopping off one of their legs. Instead of continuing to chase him, they stayed behind, just waiting in case Lucas ran their way, limiting his escape routes. His stamina had also dropped twice as fast as before, and he couldn’t take any more potions in the next hour, so he had to make a decision. Soon, he was back in the game, with his death aura permeating his bone blades for the first time.

He wasted no time waiting to attack, as time was of the essence when he was using his death aura. He also changed his strategy. This time he didn’t look to cut any limbs; a scratch was all he needed, and this was much easier to achieve. Pretty soon, his opponents were suffering from the necrotic effects of the death aura. They were distracted by it enough for him to check up on his health.

It isn’t dropping? Lucas wondered when he saw that his health hadn’t changed much since he began using his aura. He remembered that it had only taken a couple of minutes the first time he used it to almost drain his health completely. Being fair, he was pretty beat up already that time when he used the death aura, so that had probably played a part in the draining of his health, but still, he was sure the expenditure of health was much bigger that time around.

Was he perhaps more skilled with it now? No, that couldn’t be it; he hadn’t trained with it ever since that day… is it because the blade is a part of my body? That idea popped into Lucas’ brain and suddenly it all made sense. Previously, the expenditure of health using the death aura had been great because he had extended it to cover his axe, but now he was only using them in his blades, which were technically a part of his body. However, he still believed that the expenditure this time around was a little higher than when he just used the aura passively, probably due to the necrotic effects, but the difference wasn’t so great. It allowed him to keep using them for a lot longer than he previously expected.

Lucas couldn’t hold back his laughter from pure joy. Before, he had thought that those eight were the end of the road for him, but with this new surprise, he believed he could keep going for a while longer.

“Come!” he yelled at them, and they seemed to understand as they leaped towards him.