Chapter 104: Watching a Show - V

Earth.

Louis Hilves breathed in the mana-dense atmosphere. His cells were boiling with delight, creating a subtle draconic growl within his own body.

[Mana Coating] clad his spear as he brandished its pointed blade diagonally upwards. A humming blue glow distorted the air around the spearhead.

His A-Rank [Draconic Strength] multiplied his Physique stats by 200% for as long as his body could take it.

Paired with the similarly A-Rank [Draconic Pressure] that surrounded him with an aura of mental pressure equal to 150% of his Mind stat, he stood before the boss of this Level 80 Gate.

The members of his party were in position behind him. They watched as the Level 81 Fiend—standing over 7 feet tall and wielding a pristine black sword that it kept gallantly at its side—seemed to laugh at them.

"Kakakaka,"

Its fangs clattered in amusement.

"ꂦ꓄ꃅꍟꋪꅏꂦꋪ꒒ꀸꍟꋪꌗ, ꉓꂦꂵꍟ!"

The words it spoke sounded grotesque, not because of its voice, but because of the unique language it used. Still, Louis and his party somehow understood the meaning behind its words.

"Hmph,"

Louis harrumphed, and in the next moment, his figure charged forward.

—Whoosh!

The battlefield of barren red soil and dried weeds created a dust cloud in his wake, flinging dust particles into the air.

—Clang!

—Whoom!

Steel rang against steel as Louis swung his spear in a wide arc, and the Fiend blocked with its sword. The accompanying gust of wind from the force of their strikes blew away the growing haze of maroon.

With the flick of his wrist, Louis pulled his spear back and stabbed, aiming for the heart.

The Fiend dodged his blade by a hair’s breadth, but he just followed after the monstrous figure by straining his muscles further.

Louis’ spear transitioned into five different attacks in the span of two short moments, and the Fiend dodged and parried each time.

A swing, a stab, a pursuing slash.

Several thrusts, a flurry of swift cuts, and the whistling swing of the spear’s shaft.

The human and the Fiend danced in a whirl of metal. What the Fiend lacked in his weapon’s reach, it compensated for with its height and long limbs.

Louis tried to maintain a certain distance, but the slight height disadvantage made it difficult.

The Fiend’s limbs were much longer than those of a human of its height. After all, Louis, standing at around 6 feet 11 inches, was already pretty close to its height. ℯ

But their respective overall reach was basically identical.

Even their auras cancelled each other out.

Louis, with his [Draconic Pressure] in full activation, was draining his mind with every second that passed.

On the other hand, the Fiend oozed with darkness-attributed mana, polluting his surroundings with ionizing radiation, breaking molecules down like invisible corrosion.

There was a reason why the area was nothing more than a red desert similar to the surface of Mars.

—Bang!

The battle shifted in the Fiend’s favor as it displayed a level of martial discipline that the untrained Hunters of Earth lacked.

Louis dodged a diagonal slash as he recovered his spear from the messy failure of his earlier stab.

He had been too greedy to draw first blood.

Now, the Fiend pressured him with a barrage of hacks and slashes, pushing him back with the sheer weight of its mass.

The black sword was much heavier than his spear, and even the Fiend seemed to carry much more mass in its demonic frame.

Unlike the Fiend, who could parry his swift strikes with ease, Louis could not do the same to its momentum-loaded slashes.

—Clang!

Still, Louis tried to redirect an off-center downward slash in hopes of a swift counter.

However, his wrists were shocked by the sudden overflow of force. The Fiend’s black blade skidded down the spear’s shaft and nearly sliced off his fingers.

Unfortunately, his hands had grown numb all of a sudden.

But the Fiend had no reason to wait. Its downward slash shifted upwards, tearing through the air.

Louis leaned back to save his entire manhood from being split in two as he sent a quick thrust with his spear.

—Splatter!

A deep wound cut through the Fiend’s shoulder as Louis’ [Mana Coating] wreaked havoc on its defenses.

However...

—Spurt!

A gash appeared on Louis’ chest, deep enough to expose his rib cage.

"Ugh..."

At this moment, it would have seemed like Louis had committed a grave error.

However... the earlier dust cloud had long since spread across the battlefield. In fact, it was thicker than before, having been fed by the Fiend’s and his own movements.

Suddenly, Louis retreated.

"ꃅꀎꃅ?" The Fiend grunted, losing his foe and thus missing the rhythm of his attacks.

In the end, a Fiend wasn’t a true demon. It was merely one of the many products that the true demons bred as cannon fodder. Although well-trained, Fiends were lacking intelligence.

In fact, the Fiend in this Level 80 Gate was a little smarter—it was capable of arrogance.

But it was this unfounded pride it wielded that would determine its downfall.

Lila could mow down a hundred Fiends with a single slash, decimating legions at will. Louis was still struggling with one, but that was merely a difference between Earth and Fleim.

One had years of training, adventuring, and life-and-death battles under her belt as she rose to A-Rank. Then, when she was finally given the Blessing of Light, the havoc she wreaked upon the demon armies made her a strategic force by herself.

The other had never been a fighter for most of his life. It was only because of an apocalypse that he picked up a weapon and carved a path of survival for himself and for others. His journey had just begun.

Thus...

—Ssuk!

An arrow lodged itself into the Fiend’s eye.

—Swish!

Four silver gleams tore through its limbs, severing them all at once.

With a thud, the Fiend fell to the ground.

—VWHOOOM!

Before being engulfed in a pillar of flame that descended from the skies.

When the red dust cloud dissipated, Louis reemerged, good as new.

The gash on his chest had already been healed.

"Magic is truly..." He was about to say something when an excited voice rang out.

"Oh! I levelled up thrice!"

Louis looked over to the owner of the voice—it was a girl, still in the middle of her teens, with a face stained with blood and a churning magical aura.

After scouting her as the party’s destruction mage, Louis was in the middle of power-leveling her in high-level dungeons. Mages had become an integral part of every Hunter Party.

Especially now, when Level 80 Gates erupted in full force.

Just as they had guessed—as if the world had finished amassing enough power—another round of chaos devoured the fortresses that humanity tried so hard to build.

But that also meant that Louis could continue getting stronger.