I stepped back, avoiding the huge hands trying to crush me, only for them to slam into the ground with a loud sound and tear apart the remaining grass, creating a small crater there.
As a result of that attack, the monster’s movement stopped for a moment, and in that short instant I raised my hand, the sphere of essence between my fingers shooting directly toward its forehead and piercing its massive skull.
A faint explosion echoed, and fragments of bone flew through the air along with pieces of brain.
Before the monster, which had already died, could begin falling to the ground, the other one was already beside me.
At a height of five meters and weighing hundreds of kilograms, its body held immense strength, surpassing mine many times over... but that was all there was to it, just physical strength.
I took a single step back, letting its thick arm like a tree trunk pass before me at tremendous speed, tearing through the air and sending out a shockwave while that annoying sound of its echoed, something I did not even know how to describe.
The moment its arm passed in front of me, I was already prepared, my sword wrapped in essence rising beneath its arm and passing through its skin and flesh in a single instant, its severed arm hitting the ground while its hideous scream rose beside me.
Blood poured from its severed arm as it lunged toward me with its massive body, its three remaining arms trying to grab and tear me apart while it opened its deformed mouth wide and pure madness filled its eyes.
Instead of retreating, I met it head-on and dashed toward it before lowering myself, avoiding its arms as I slid beneath it and reached directly under its stomach.
Without stopping, I thrust upward, my sword piercing through its skin and sinking deep inside. At the same time, essence was consumed from my body as it flowed into the sword and tore the monster apart from the inside.
Its scream filled with pure agony rose.
But even that was not enough to kill it, so gathering strength in my hand, I moved my sword downward as I cut open its lower stomach, revealing its entrails and other internal organs as they spilled out and fell to the ground.
"How stubborn," I muttered as I raised my other hand while a sphere of essence formed there and shot directly toward its head above me, piercing through the underside of its jaw.
Only then did its screams and resistance stop while its body began to collapse on top of me, and I quickly retreated to the side to avoid being crushed.
Blood flowed beneath the massive corpse, watering that tall grass and becoming nourishment for it.
I stared at the corpse on the ground while still focusing on the battlefield through my senses, feeling the others’ battles.
I looked at the first monster on the ground... something I would have struggled to kill just a week ago.
But now it lay there lifeless after only a few seconds of resistance.
It was true that monsters had always surpassed humans in terms of raw physical strength at the same rank, but monsters were monsters after all, relying on instinct rather than intelligence.
Well, not those things after Rank 5... there, things became different.
You might find its body weak, but you would not be able to touch it in the first place... and that was more dangerous than direct combat.
I turned my head backward as I saw three monsters like this under attack by the others, their bodies covered in wounds and arrows stuck in them, even burns.
I raised my finger while essence condensed into a small solid sphere that was hollow on the inside. Then I added more essence into it and compressed it together, trying to keep it trapped inside, causing this small sphere to be filled with tremendous power.
Then in the next moment, at the perfect time when one of the monsters was a few dozen meters away from me and in the proper path, I created a tiny opening at the tip of the sphere and released the energy inside from my control.
This caused the compressed force inside to search for the nearest exit, and there was only that tiny opening.
As a result, a line of light shot out at a speed impossible to follow before piercing through the monster’s head in the exact moment it was focused on Leona.
And it seemed she had seen it coming as she avoided its body while it fell to the ground.
I looked at the small sphere as it faded from my hand.
This was just a small thing I created in Asfaria to execute a powerful attack focused on a tiny point.
Unfortunately, it was not the best thing in terms of essence consumption or efficiency... well, compared to abilities, I think I am being a little creative.
Speaking of abilities, I looked at Izel while essence moved through her body in a complicated manner until it reached her hand, where a sphere of bright orange flames formed.
Whether it was me or anyone else, every person had a certain and complicated flow of essence before activating their ability.
For me, most of the flow of essence was concentrated around my eyes and brain whenever I activated my ability.
So the question was, if someone had the ability to notice the finest details of the way essence moved in others, then copy and imitate it, would they be able to imitate their abilities?
The answer was no.
How did I know?
Simply because I had tried it before.
The first time I thought about it was in the laboratory, so when my miserable past self had that idea, it thought it would become the strongest.
But after spending a long time analyzing the simplest ability one of the experiments like me had, I managed to imitate its flow perfectly.
It took me a great deal of time, so I had to prolong my battles with it to gain as much time to study it as possible.
In the end, I failed.
No matter how much I corrected the flaws and turned it into a perfect imitation, I did not succeed... well, except that my control over essence became more precise because of the practice.
I tried it again in the Axis after advancing to the Advanced sub-rank, but I failed again... although it became easier that time.
Even now, when essence flowed through Elliot’s body before my eyes, I could see the paths and sense the ones my eyes could not catch, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not understand the principle that let it affect the space around him so easily and shorten the distance between two points.
Yes, his essence leaked out unconsciously and affected the world, but even so, something was still missing.
The source of abilities themselves and their foundation.
I sighed.
"It would have been wonderful to get an answer to that."
No one had a clear answer to that question, unfortunately.
Well, perhaps one person...
One person I wanted to slaughter in the most hideous and painful way this mind of mine could think of.
...The Pillar of Mind.
I let out a long sigh as I pushed those thoughts from my head and looked at the others, who had already finished their battles.
I walked toward them across the ruined ground, passing by the corpses scattered everywhere.
Over the past hours, we had fought many battles, and every battle attracted more of these monsters because of the loud noise.
And our path was ridiculously easy to follow.
So we ended up in this chaos... not that I minded in the first place, rather, it was welcome.
Izel collapsed to the ground, panting as she caught her breath, while Kyle merely placed his hand on the monster and breathed roughly as essence flowed into his body.
Leona leaned on her sword while catching her breath, while Ellen simply stood there as her blades merged into one again and somehow rid themselves of the blood stuck to them.
As for Elliot, he began absorbing essence immediately without any delay... it seemed he was getting close to Rank 3.
And that meant he would become stronger than me again... at least in theory.
I reached them while looking around at the chaotic and bloodstained area around us, and of course, the great amount of scattered meat.
"Do you really not want to have this for dinner?" I repeated the question I had asked earlier, my tone filled with amusement.
Izel grimaced like a cat disgusted by its food as she replied,
"No thanks, you can keep it for yourself just like you do with the other things."
I looked at the monster... well, it looked prettier and more edible to me than those worms or the rotting things inside the maze.
It even resembled a deer a little.
I shrugged as I approached and chose the proper part to take some meat from while replying to Izel.
"Your loss... you might have to eat something worse later if you do not do this now."
With that, I stabbed my sword into the monster’s thigh and cut through the skin before beginning to skin it, revealing the dark red meat beneath.
"Let us see what this tastes like."