Kyle felt the Meteor Ether coursing through his body.
The conversion was so smooth.
It flowed so naturally and without any inhibitions.
This was what he wanted to achieve.
'It's perfect,' he thought with a smile.
'Finally.'
For just a moment, he stopped over the ocean, taking a deep breath.
A feeling of achievement and pride flowed through him.
It felt great to become stronger.
This was why he was working so hard.
This feeling was just indescribable.
After some minutes, he breathed out again.
'Time to test!' he thought with a smirk as he charged into the ocean.
He rapidly shot through the ocean and reached the eternal sheet of ice near the bottom.
Then, he simply traveled along the ocean floor.
After some minutes, his instincts warned him of some danger.
He approached the danger, and almost immediately, an attack was launched his way.
Some kind of concentrated stream of water shot at him, and Kyle evaded to the side.
A moment later, he saw the attacker with his Ether Sense.
A gigantic squid, almost a kilometer long.
'A Level Four Transcending Beast,' Kyle thought.
Kyle listened to his instincts.
The enemy was a bit dangerous, but not overly so.
As long as he treated this battle seriously, he would almost certainly win.
The next moment, several tentacles charged at Kyle.
The red film around Kyle became a bit darker, and he weaved through the tentacles.
Avoiding them was not too difficult.
'The most powerful part of my Law of Meteor is its speed and destructive power,' Kyle thought. 'If these attacks hit me, I will die, but they have to hit me first.'
There were several ways to combine Kyle's three Elements.
He had decided to forego the hardness of metal in exchange for increased speed and power.
As the tentacles shot past Kyle, he charged towards the enemy.
A couple more tentacles flew at him, but Kyle just made sudden and explosive movements to the side before continuing forward.
Then, a stream of condensed water shot at him again, but he still wasn't hit.
Finally, Kyle reached his enemy.
He lifted his hammer.
Boop.
And lightly tapped the squid before flying into the distance.
Kyle chuckled as the squid tried to catch up to him.
'Don't need to kill this one. If I kill this guy, this world will lose 10% of all Level Four Transcending Beasts.'
Naturally, the squid never managed to catch up to Kyle, and some seconds later, it abandoned the chase.
The enemy was simply too fast. For the next hour, Kyle just flew through the Grand Ocean, booping every kind of Level Four Transcending Beast he could find.
'This is amazing!' he thought. 'My power has increased so much!'
Back when Kyle had entered the Grand Ocean for the first time, he had essentially been fleeing from the Winterfire Empire.
Just a short time earlier, he had needed Sebastian's help to fight a weak Nobody.
The Grand Ocean had been unimaginably dangerous to Kyle.
Years later, he managed to kill the Imperial Advisor on his own.
Yet, the Imperial Advisor had still been one of the weakest Nobodies.
The Grand Ocean had still been insanely dangerous.
Some years later, he managed to fight Level One Transcending Beasts on his own, but the Level Two and Three ones had still been far beyond his abilities.
After dealing with the lobster, he unlocked the ability to travel through the majority of the Grand Ocean. He just had to avoid the ocean floor and the coasts.
And now, he could go wherever he wanted.
The southern kingdoms, the northern kingdoms, the World Peak, the central landmass, it didn't matter.
He could go anywhere.
Why?
Because he was the strongest!
Well, except for the Duchess of Twilight.
It was so freeing!
Nothing was a danger anymore!
'Wait, I remembered something!'
Kyle changed his trajectory and flew towards the south.
Within just a couple of seconds, he reached the peninsula, and soon, he found his target.
As Kyle looked down from the sky, he saw a breathtaking sight.
Several big mountains in a perfect formation.
The teeth of the Colossus.
Kyle still remembered how imposing the Colossus had been when he had seen it for the first time.
Back then, Theodor had said that he wouldn't be sure who would win between King Skysand and the Colossus.
How could a human possibly fight something this massive?
Kyle's Ether Sense encompassed the front of the Colossus.
A Level Two Transcending Beast.
'I mean, yeah, it's pretty fucking big,' Kyle thought, 'but taking it down isn't hard.'
'Just gotta grow to my maximum size and hit it.'
'It will lose its balance, and then, I have several ways to deal with it.'
'I could keep attacking its body until it runs out of Ether and can't regenerate anymore.'
'I could ram my pick into its side and flood it with Meteor Ether.'
'I could detonate my Meteor Ether inside it.'
'Sure, it would be a slog just due to its sheer size. I would need a bunch of attacks, but it wouldn't be hard. It's just like cutting ten pieces of meat instead of only one.'
Naturally, the Colossus also noticed Kyle, but it didn't move.
The Colossus mainly ate Ether-rich earth. In fact, one of the things it ate was the clouds of Skysand.
Kyle remembered how impossibly powerful this thing had been, and he also remembered how weak he had been back then.
'Times have changed,' he thought.
'I'm no longer the youngster from back then.'
'Speaking of, how old am I even?'
As Kyle added up all the years he had been in the world, his eyes widened.
'Brah, I'm like 75 or something!'
'I'm a fucking Boomer!'
'But I still feel quite young. I feel like I'm in my prime.'
'Crazy!'
'This doesn't feel like I'm 75. Feels more like I'm 30 or something.'
'Guess that's what happens when you look at Ether all day.'
Kyle scratched the back of his head.
'Yeah, well, who cares?'
'I don't!'
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