Chapter 337: Encountering The Corrupted

Leading the group of a hundred some soldiers, Seth was at the very forefront of the group walking into the dense foliage of the surroundings.

Seth didn’t linger along the shore for long, after making sure all survivors in the surroundings had been gathered, they promptly proceeded to penetrate the forest.

The group broke into the dense canopy of the trees, with close tightened growths, blocking the glare from the crimson sky a bit.

With stray rays, shining here and there, the group moved stealthily through the eerily silent surroundings.

The corruption essence content in the air grew denser the more they progressed, but they still hadn’t caught sight of a foe.

Seth’s brows knitted into a frown, scanning the surroundings with both his heightened physical senses like sight, and a mental scan yet... Nothing.

This meant only one of two things: one, there was no monster close by.

Two, the monsters could somehow evade his sense of sight and mental scan.

Number two was a possibility because anything was possible now, he couldn’t rule out the fact that these beasts could somehow develop a mechanism that kept them invisible under the senses’ potential threat.

Because of this, Seth never let up his guard, while also never signaling the soldiers trailing behind to relax.

The group remained tense and wary as they progressed through the forests.

Mists of red drifting through the air, the tint of crimson in the atmosphere gradually becoming thicker as they progressed.

And it was at this moment, Seth’s ears and nose twitched.

As he caught a faint whiff of a pungent odor and a faint rattle of a branch in the distance.

Seth unraveled his senses into the surroundings, his eyes flashing bright, but he still didn’t catch a clear glimpse or even a feel of the enemy.

"Damn it." Seth hissed silently under his breath, realizing that option two was becoming more likely.

A faint rush of wind blew, causing his hair to flutter to the side faintly, and there it was, riding the wind, a rotten stench one he was familiar with.

The awful stench of a lifeform plagued by corruption.

His ears twitched, catching faint sounds of branches creaking and rattling more often.

The noise pattern grew more numerous by the second, allowing Seth to deduce that the incoming enemy was probably swinging off branches.

"Monkeys?" Seth muttered, his sight finally catching a faint flash of silver overhead; he equipped his grim bone spear instantly.

His genetic battle suit, still recovering from critical damage, remained unable to be equipped, his topless body bare of any armour.

His intention to test himself completely became apparent.

Seth needed to understand his current limit, as this was a crucial first vital stage of mastering his own power.

He signaled the soldiers behind him by hand to take cover; remaining silent, the group relayed the signal to the others behind them by continuously flashing the sign.

Till everyone got the order and blended into the trees—though now the faint scent of origin essence drew in the corrupted.

The best these rabid beasts could do was to narrow down on the general location of the enticing scent.

The abhorrents couldn’t pinpoint their exact position; fortunately, Seth’s nose and ears were sharp enough to catch these monsters’ flaws.

If not, their group would be ambushed before they even understood what was happening.

Everyone equipped their weapons and armours, stilling their breaths and blending their presence into nature as though.

The group instantly vanished all while Seth nimbly and silently scaled the trees, swinging even more cautiously and silently than the approaching group of corrupted.

With his spear strapped to his side, he tracked down a corrupted, catching a good glance of one.

His eyes flickered coldly, locking on the crimson-tinted silver-furred monkey with four eyes.

With a savage-looking face, the monster nimbly swung from tree to tree, silent and measured.

It barely made any noise vocally or by movement, and even though Seth could clearly see it with his eyes, he still couldn’t sense it by scan—the beast’s fur just fluttered with a faint sheen of iridescence the moment his will washed over it.

This fur coat was clearly a stealth mechanism masking their presence.

Such a beast was a treasure, Seth realized—his stats were already maxed, and he wasn’t in need of treasure or loot drops.

But their fur would do.

Seth reached for his spear silently, not with his hands but with his mental sense.

This was his mental influence over marrow matter, allowing his will to sink its influence into his spear.

The dark weapon slowly buzzed as it floated into the air, Seth’s essence flaring as it poured into activating the duplication ability of the spear.

As grey, grim spears began to multiply in the atmosphere, under the influence of his telekinetic-like control of the weapon, they began to snake through the air.

Drawing dark streaks as the bone-melting poison glistened at the bony tip of the spear.

Wafting a dark shade as the weapons quickly tracked all four-eyed monkeys within Seth’s sight range.

Seth had only one chance to launch a surprise attack, after that the mindless corrupted would abandon stealth and launch rabid attacks.

And he planned to utilize this advantage to its fullest.

The spears began to spin silently to increase lethality; they streaked straight towards the corrupted beasts.

The four-eyed monkeys only sensed something wrong when it was too late, the spears were close and they weren’t fast enough to evade.

A shriek devoid driven by freak instincts rang out, as before the monkeys could even react to the blur of attack, the spear tore right through their frame.

Tearing gaping holes into their heads, injecting lethal flows of essence that devastated the rabid group’s brain matter.

A furious chorus of roars, snarls and growls began to ring out from the surroundings as the four-eyed monkey horde, abandoning silence, burst into flashes and increased the pace of their movements.

Tracing down the source of origin, they grew more feral, not even showing any care for the fact that a few of their brethren had died.

The feral bunch just took the sudden death as a signal to abandon stealth—after all, the enemy was already aware of them, so there was no use keeping silent.

Flashing through the branches, the four-eyed monkeys swung so fast even Seth had to admit to their superiority in this field.

Their canines flashed as they raced towards Seth, his eyes darting through all in sight, a mass of spears swirling around his frame in constant duplication.

Seth’s gene skill, Weapon Resonance, flared to life, Force Embodiment silently activating, all while his class skill slowly influenced the shadows, forming a shadow pool beneath his feet.

Seth locked his lips, swinging his hands forwards as mental flow charged, casting the rain of spears forward.

Amped by the buff of his gene skill and reformed essence, the spear tore through the wind at a speed that crossed the threshold of subsonic levels.

Tearing a tunnel through the sand barrier, the spears rained upon the corrupted, butchering them with a scary efficiency.

Seth’s vision drowning in the constant flow of kill alerts.

[Congratulations! You have slain a four-eyed devil corrupted beast!]

[Maxed stat limit detected. Unable to receive stats!]

[Do you wish to maintain a full corpse of your prey? Y/N]