Chapter 52: The Swarm of Kharntuft II

Chapter 52: Chapter 52: The Swarm of Kharntuft II

"Are you out of your goddamn fucking mind?!" Eric roared into the damp forest air, pure fury boiling over his composure. "Fallback to the Mortal Realm?! I spent weeks bleeding in the rifts and refining my foundation, and you’re threatening to shatter my core over twenty overgrown lice you trash system?!"

He whipped around, drawing the Wavecaller from his hip with an ear-splitting ring of bone and steel. The pale-blue, ivory blade caught the dim forest light, humming with murderous intent as pure liquid mana flooded the edge.

"Fuck these vermin, and fuck this penalty! Coal, full engagement! Wipe every single one of these bastards out! Flood the clearing with clones and rip them apart!"

*SKRRRAAAK!* Coal shrieked, feeling the volcanic surge of Eric’s rage down the soul link.

Perched high among the cedar branches, Coal initiated the massacre.

*Shadow Clone!*

Five pitch-black phantom duplicates peeled away from Coal’s body, diving into the clearing like dark raptors.

With ten Kharntuft clustering in the vanguard, Coal’s aerial supremacy turned the canopy into a slaughterhouse. Whenever a Kharntuft snapped its feelers toward a decoy, the genuine Coal dropped like a thunderbolt into the blind spot behind its neck.

*SHLICK! CRUNCH!*

His *Shadow Talons* ripped through carapaces, severing legs, gouging compound eyes, and puncturing neck joints before the disoriented beasts could even register the angle of attack. Using Skystride, Coal ricocheted off tree trunks and compressed air pockets, executing hit-and-run strikes that steadily bled the swarm’s frontline.

On the forest floor, however, Eric was fighting for his life.

Ten Kharntuft surrounded him in a tight semicircle, their scythe-legs clicking furiously as they lunged in a coordinated wave.

*Shadow Steps!*

Eric blurred laterally, slipping past two snapping claws, and drove his sword upward in a clean, ascending diagonal stroke.

*SPLURT!*

Advanced Swordsmanship at Minor mastery made every movement instinctive and lethal. The ivory bone blade sheared effortlessly through the first beast’s chitin throat. Without pausing to admire the kill even for a short second, Eric kicked the falling corpse into a second attacker, using the momentary obstruction to spin and decapitate a third beast leaping from his left flank.

Yet the sheer number of these monsters proved relentless.

As Eric cleaved through a fourth monster, two more lunged simultaneously from his blind spots.

*RIP! TEAR!*

Serrated chitin hooks tore across his enchanted scout armor. While the shadow-drake hide blunted the lethal edge of the strike, the kinetic impact bruised his ribs, and the hooking claws ripped through his forearms, thighs, and shoulder, opening burning, bloody furrows.

Eric gritted his teeth, locking down the pain as sweat and blood stung his vision. He couldn’t afford a single misstep. Twisting, ducking, parrying, and counter-cleaving, he danced on the razor-thin margin between life and death.

For ten suffocating minutes, the forest echoed with the wet sounds of butchery and frantic shrieks.

*SHUCK!*

With a final, desperate burst of mana, Eric drove the Wavecaller straight down through the cranium of the twentieth Kharntuft, pinning its thrashing frame into the loam.

The beast gave one last violent tremor, and the clearing dropped into dead silence.

Eric slumped back against a wide cedar trunk, his blade still lodged deep in the monster’s skull. His chest heaved in ragged, shallow gasps, his lungs burning like hot embers. Blood soaked through multiple tears in his tunic, his muscles trembled from severe lactic exhaustion, and his liquid mana pool was bone-dry.

"Ugh... fuck this..." Eric wheezed, sliding down the bark until he was sitting in the mulch. "My entire body feels like it was dragged under a siege carriage..."

Then, the mechanical chime chimed.

*DING!*

│ [DYNAMIC QUEST CLEARED]

│ [Distributing Rewards...]

│

│ - Level Up x1: Applied directly to host’s vessel!

│ - Basic Gacha Ticket x1: Deposited into Inventory.

*BOOM!*

A warm, radiant torrent of primordial vitality detonated within Eric’s Mana Heart.

The profound energy surged through his meridians like a tidal wave. Under the restorative shockwave of a forced level breakthrough, the agonizing exhaustion plaguing his limbs evaporated in a heartbeat. His bruised ribs clicked back into flawless alignment, his torn flesh knit together at miraculous speed, and every depleted drop of liquid mana was fully restored and expanded to a higher reservoir ceiling.

Within five seconds, Eric rose to his feet, feeling as pristine, energized, and sharp as if he had just completed an eight-hour rest.

│ STATUS PANEL

│

│ Name: Eric

│ Race: Human

│ Cultivation Stage: Soldier

│ Level: 2 (0%)

│ Talent: Appraisal (Rank D), Skill Comprehension (Rank C)

│ Skills:

│ - Shadow Steps (Rank D) [Mastery: Minor]

│ - Advanced Swordsmanship (Rank D) [Mastery: Minor]

│ Contracted Beast: 1/2

Eric stared down at his healed palms, then poked at the clean, unscarred skin visible beneath the shredded fabric of his sleeves. A sheepish, dry chuckle escaped his throat.

"Right... I completely forgot an instant level-up fully restores the host’s body," Eric rubbed the back of his neck with a wry grin. "Fair enough, System. I take it back. You came through."

A soft rustle sounded from the branches above.

Coal drifted down, landing unsteadily upon Eric’s leather pauldron. While Coal had avoided physical wounds thanks to his aerial mobility, maintaining five Shadow Clones and executing dozens of high-speed Skystrides had completely drained his reserves. The crow’s plumage was disheveled, his eyes heavy with exhaustion.

"You fought brilliantly, Coal," Eric murmured softly, gently stroking the bird’s dark neck. "Rest up in the beast space. Take all the time you need to recharge your core."

With a soft mental command, a beam of dark mist drew Coal back into the taming space, where the rich soul energy would gradually restore his spent reserves.

Eric pulled the Wavecaller free from the dead Kharntuft’s skull, flicked the yellow hemolymph from the pale-blue edge, and checked the display on his trial smartband.

His point tally had jumped by twenty seven points in a single engagement, but the trial had only just begun.

Gazing deeper into the shadowed timber, Eric tightened his grip on the hilt.

"The opening round is cleared. Let’s see what else this crucible has waiting for."