Once upon a time, Zol and Mason almost lost their lives going against a Class S void creature. Mason had given it his all to deliver a blow that bought him enough time to get the injured Zol away.
Those two hunters at the time were very powerful hunters. However, for the same monster those two failed to even match in speed, Ross and Julia were doing that while still at the peak of Class A.
They had been able to match the creature for speed, save for power. And while it could be said that their weapon and armour were nearly indestructible and took the brunt of the damage, the fact that they could keep up with such a creature showed how broken they were.
One can only imagine how powerful and devastating their attacks would be once they reached the S-Tier.
SCREECH…!
The void creature let out an ear-splitting sound in agony as it swiftly backed away from Julia, coming to a stop several trillion kilometres away. It looked down to where its arm was just moments prior, finding a frozen stump all the way to its elbows.
The deadly strike Julia unleashed at that moment was so swift that the creature barely had any time to react. Before it could even blink, its arm was gone.
The ominous aura around the creature suddenly dimmed, along with its blood-red eyes. It was losing its killing instincts, survival kicking in. As a creature of destruction, it should only concern itself with absolute destruction.
However, their intelligence didn't make them mindless monsters. They learn from their encounters and grow — just like any other living being.
"Impressive." Ross suddenly said as he appeared in a blaze of blue flames. "Your presence increased this much just from the breakthrough."
It was mind-boggling.
The Julia now and the Julia seconds ago were totally different. Just standing beside her was making his knees tremble — her presence was that heavy.
"Yeah…" Julia marvelled at her newfound strength. "The power flowing through me is insane. And everything looks different. I see things differently now." Her eyes saw the various shades of mana, pinpointing the one she used — ice mana.
"You don't say…" Ross would have clicked his tongue in envy if he wasn't on the verge of breaking through himself. "Keep an eye on wolfy while I level up."
"Are you sure?" Julia looked sideways at him. "At my current level, I can kill it in less than a second."
"..."
Naturally, Ross knew that. But at this point, did that matter? What Alex desired for them to learn, they've achieved. The fight was to push them into a situation where they would want to increase their power.
"Yeah, the bastard's all yours," Ross said and sat crossed-legged in the void. "Just keep your suffocating cold from me."
"Sure…" The Knight princess giggled and turned to look at the creature, a deadly light glinting in her eyes. "This is going to be payback for all that beating you dished out on me..."
The creature suddenly felt a cold shiver run down its back. Not knowing where it came from, it focused its attention on the prey that was now glaring at it, their killing intent almost palpable.
The void creature had to use a lot of energy to dispel the biting cold from its missing arm before the wound could regenerate. Even then, the process was incredibly slow.
"You should be ready for round two now…" Julia waited for the creature to regenerate. "Time for payback!"
She disappeared and reappeared before the creature in a flash, flying at speeds that covered tens of lightyears in a split second. Her sudden arrival took the creature off guard as it scurried to evade.
The Knight princess came at the creature, lowered her centre of gravity, and thrust her gleaming cold steel forward, aiming for the void creature's belly. The lunge was fast and precise, barely leaving room for thinking.
Despite how fast the lunge had been, the creature managed to evade by shifting its body out of the way, or so should have been the case.
Julia predicted the creature would sidestep her lunge — the thrust was a feint. The real strike followed immediately the creature began its movement.
The lunge came to an abrupt halt as Julia changed the lunge into a slash, directing it at the creature's side. The slash cut into the creature's side, the deadly arc tearing the void creature in half.
'Already?' Julia was surprised at how easy it was to cut through the creature. 'In that case…!'
Before the creature could process why it ended up two, multiple cold lines appeared all over its body. The void creature's body began to fall apart.
In a bid to draw some degree of satisfaction for failing to torture the void creature, Julia resulted to delivering multiple slashes that shredded the creature into pieces.
'You don't have complete control over your strength yet.' Julia heard Alex say. Hearing his words only made her more irritated.
'Tch! Why didn't you say this sooner!' Julia was livid. 'I could have put my sword away and pummeled it until I was satisfied!'
'Who said you can't have another try?' Alex replied smugly. 'Also, you should know you're no ordinary S-Class…'
'Telling me now isn't going to make a difference!' Julia was still raging to go. 'Bring another one of those suckers here, preferably a stronger one.'
'Sure…' Alex chuckled. 'But let's wait for Ross. He's almost there…'
Julia turned around to look in Ross's direction, noticing the swirling storm of mana beginning to rotate around the redhead.
The mana storm began to take a blue hue, slowly changing to purple until it reached light purple. Reaching this point, the storm came to a stop for the briefest of moments before a massive explosion akin to a supernova took off around Ross.
Space trembled and energy was dispersed for tens of lightyears as the torrential waves of light purple flames spread out from Ross as the centre.
Then as fast as this occurred, the flames rushed back towards Ross and came to rotate around his body, his vortexes siphoring the abundant energies like a creature starved for eons.
'Was my ascension this explosive…?' Julia couldn't help but mutter in shock. 'Even from here, I can feel the heat…'