Aurum who felt the Avatar behind him like an extension of his body grew ecstatic. The figure moved with him but he could control it telepathically. "FUCK THIS IS TOO COOL!" the injuries on his body disappeared due to finally being able to level up.
The blonde woke up both his brains and had one control his main body and one control the Aura Avatar. The avatar was armed with an over 15-meter great sword shaped like the one its owner had.
He still didn't know how it worked but sent the giant to attack the Jormungandrs. The snakes looked like colossal versions of desert-horned vipers, whose most distinct feature is having horns on top of their eyes.
Due to the avatar's immense size, it towered over the 30-meter snakes. When it fault its movements felt clunky but it succeeded in beheading one of the reptiles due to them being so clustered together.
At the snake's death, its body collapsed on the other snakes knocking them out of the way. Aurum then had the being made of Aura charge and forcefully push the Goliath Dragoneater aside. The spider which looked like a super-sized Goliath bird-eating spider spat silk into the avatar's eyes, then mauled it viciously.
As Aurum still had another pair of eyes he could naturally still fight even with the avatar blinded. While the arachnid's attacks were ferocious, as the Avatar lacked any flesh no matter the amount of poison it injected the fluids just spilled on the floor.
Unintended as it may be the avatar served as a punching back for the Goliath Dragoneater. Consequently, even though it was losing it allowed the caravan to pass through unhindered. Once it did Hiro sent a message to his men and sister.
- Hiro: There is some time before the next wave, annihilate that group then catch up to the caravan. Well done. -
The son of Standar who felt amazing due to the praise started to vomit blood in horrifying amounts. In the same second, the avatar faded out of existence which caused the gigantic spider to screech in anger.
Aurum endured and drank list the last vial of blood and ate the his last dried meat snacks. "Guess I now have to eat what is available". With the caravan out of danger, the man could fight with ease.
His body screamed in pain and complained at his torture, yet the son of Standar ignored it all and charged the monsters once more.
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On the east side of the caravan, Lars danced among the monsters while taking their lives. Luckily for him, he did not have snakes, dragons, or a giant spider to worry about he just had ants and scorpions about three thousand of them.
Like an unstoppable wave, Laura Krich sliced and gutted antlion after antlion as they tried to snap his head in their powerful jaws. The antlions weren't very powerful but there was a crap ton of them.
The match-up with Laura could be considered extremely poor, he had very few crowd control skills as he excelled in surprise attacks and ambushes. Drinking blood while ensuring the insects got relieved of most of their liquids Larua fought like a machine.
He jumps to the "Spirit Realm" to murder a large amount of the ants in a short time then comes out to recharge. To the monsters, it looked like every few seconds some of them suddenly got disassembled. However, they could not catch the one responsible.
Unlike Hiro's cheat shill [Overdrive] Larua could only last 20 seconds max. Compared to Hiro's skill which increase his AGI to 9999 the time, this granted him a base time of 45 seconds which turned longer, the more Calibers Hiro could supply the skill with.
Running low on calibers Larua momentarily left the ants to assassinate the Mole harvester. Geo sent a message via the messaging system of their importance.
- Geo: Take out the Mole Harvesters, multiple monster species hold them captive for quick subterranean travel. Once they are gone, the group here will not be able to catch up to the caravan. -
At the redhead's words, the Mole harvesters which looked like giant moles with spiky hair started dying en mass on all four sides. Once they all perished Larua only then noticed the odd formation of the Antlions.
They started to cluster together by forming a wide circle and layered their bodies on top of one another like bricks on a wall. On earth, both army and fire, ants had the ability to link their bodies to form living structures for various purposes.
Army ants used their bodies to form bridges over ravines or holes to allow movement. Fire ants on the other hand created boats to survive floods. If such creatures could do that on earth what more monsters had higher intelligence on top of being 10 meters long?
Lars who knew they planned to contain him tried to leave the encirclement, but thousands of the monsters prevented him from leaving. No matter how many he butchered there were still thousands. "NO!"
Forcing himself to calm down Larua methodically killed everything that tried to attack him. Five-tailed terror scorpions also threw their hat in the ring which prevented him from focusing on the Antlions building the enclosure.
Soon, a small dome built from Antlion bodies started to take form. The black-haired assassin started to feel restless as he saw the sunlight slowly being blocked by their bodies. "No! Please no! Anything but that! LET ME OUT!!!!"
Lars infused a large amount of Calibers into his swords and tore the scorpions around him to pieces. However, when he started to slice the wall, the ants perished but left their husks on the walls of the structure.
Franticly Larua tried to slash apart the wall in front of him. Losing his composure, the man started to scream as he slashed the monsters which made up the wall. Yet against his best efforts it closed and sealed him in utter darkness.
"NOOOO!!!!!!" *Thud* *Thud*
As the cage made from Antlion bodies blotted out any light, Lars grew weak and trembled in the small dark space. His hands grew weary and he lost the strength to hold them. The man found himself regressing to the time he had no power. The darkness reminded him of where he originally came from.
He then placed his arms over his head trying to cover his ears. "NO… Please No... LET ME OUT… I WILL NEVER DISOBEY YOU AGAIN!" then the voices came.
(AHHHHHH! LARUA! HELP ME!!!!!) (Sniff…It hurts make it stop.) (LARUA MADE ME DO IT! PUNISH HIM!!!!!) (Just kill me already… Please) (PLEASE STOP! IT HURTS!!!!!) (ARRGHHHH!!!!)
Unknown to everyone except Geo and Aurum Lars had severe claustrophobia and Nyctophobia. The [Convent of Shadows] used brutal methods to eliminate weakness from their trainees.
Lars as one of them naturally had to follow the same curriculum which scared him for life.
The Krich Monastery a continent-wide relief organization was established by the saviors to take in orphans and raised them into good citizens. That was the intent anyway.
Corruption and malice turned these facilities of hope into dens of inhumane suffering.
Lars' Monastery in particular sold their orphans to the convent as life stock for young assassins. He with four of his childhood friends got sold and joined an assassin class called "Dagger 53". Different from his friends Lars excelled in every field.
From cartography, hand-to-hand combat, surveillance, and tactical analysis. Even barely ten years old Larua dominated over his peers. What they didn't know was that every Dagger class had only one winner.
