CH 303

Quick Subjugation

Just seeing that army of monsters again, made my legs feel heavier as I made my way towards the cave.

While making a conscious decision to not tense up my body too much and save my stamina, I re-entered the Cave of Bahamut again.

The most important point of this solo quest was how much stamina I can conserve consistently.

Part of me wanted to go full blast using all my skills and charge inside the cave but, I decided against it and instead chose to conserve as much stamina as possible at every given moment and only use the necessary skills needed.

And so, the ones I chose were——-[Black Mist][Stealth][Silent Steps][Crimson Eyes].

I also set up the ring I bought from [Magic Cave] in a place from where I can quickly wear it, thus finishing my prep.

If I get found by monsters, I had already decided to focus more on surviving rather than fight head on.

Already calculating how much stamina I’d need to save for the return journey as well, I began walking inside the cave that had been darkened by the [Black Mist].

While hearing the cries and howls of the monsters from nearby, I depended on my crimson eyes to cleanly avoid all the monsters and continue moving forward.

Among the various unique skills I had received, I had thought that [Black Mist] would be the one that I’d use the least but, I never thought that it’d turn out to be the most useful and dependable one for me.

Though I suppose there was always [Suicidal Strike], which had even more limited usage than this.

While giving my gratitude towards the [Black Mist] skill, I continued my way inside the cave as the cries of the monsters also continue to echo within it, and in no time at all, I had already made it to the point where we had reached in an hour on our last attempt.

Honestly, this method wasn’t very exciting but if I can keep this pace up, clearing this cave should be quite doable.

………..and right when I thought that, I saw a flock of bats come towards me from the front.

A monster with flapping wings was a direct counter to my [Black Mist], and these bats probably had a similar detection skill to [Sound wave detect] that I stole from the Owl monster.

Of course I could bet on the fact that maybe they don’t have such a skill and use [Leg Strength enhancement] and [Gale] to rush past them but……….the chances of that were very low.

If they found me, they keep on chasing me and if that happens, I’ll only end up running into more monsters instead.

“……….in that case, I have no choice but to kill these bats in front of me.”

I softly muttered to myself, and made the decision to hunt these bat monsters down.

My aim were only these bat monsters alone, and as soon as I quickly kill them, I’ll hide myself again with black mist.

I’ll use the hearing weakening ring and [Effect Spread] to completely confuse the monsters of my position and prioritize running away.

Having decided on my next plan of action inside my head, I activated [Leg Strength enhancement] and [Gale].

I rushed in directly underneath  the Bats hanging on the top of the cave, and used hardened sticky strings to quickly bring them down.

With their size it was bit much to ask for an instant death but, if I can bring them down to the ground, they were as good as dead by my hands.

While also manipulating the ring with another sticky string, I stabbed my hardened strings at the 7 bats up top, and then further manipulated the strings to entangle around them.

Then, I hardened the strings again, and then slammed them down into the ground. Soon after, I unsheathed my sword and closed in on them to cut them apart.

I activated [Flesh Enhancement][War Dance][Physical Ability boost][Ability unleashed] and [Gale], and then also activated [Strong Arm] and [Hard Hit], and unleashed a barrage of strikes at the bat monsters.

Just like the black slime, I was able to kill each of them with a single strike——

And before any of them could return back into the air, I cut them all down, and seeing other monsters rush towards me after hearing the noise, I activated [Black Mist] again.

Afterwards, I deactivated all the other skills, and then reactivated [Stealth][Silent Steps][Crimson Eyes][Hearing enhancement], and then put on the Hearing weakening ring and hid myself in the black mist.

You might be thinking I should have just used poison and [Effect Spread] to deal with the bats as well but, in the off chance they were resistant to poison, I’d be in deep trouble so this method was more reliable.

Just thinking about a situation where I’ll have to simply assume that the enemy isn’t resistant to poison because there’s no other way to attack, it gave my stomach anxiety and pain.

Due to the extreme tension and the relentless movements I had to take, my heart beat was rising like crazy, so I quickly ran away from there while trying to calm down my ragged breathing.

Sensing more and monsters began gathering behind me near where I dealt with the bats, I quickly made my way further inside the cave while avoiding the monsters.

I needed to be fast and precise, and certain with my kills. That’s the kind of place this Cave of Bahamut was. Mistakes were not allowed.

As the numerous monsters ran rampant, the main condition for me was to not get found out so rather than my physical stamina which I was so worried about, it was actually my mental stamina that was getting exhausted at a rapid rate.

Desperately wiping the sweat off my forehead to make sure it didn’t even drop on to the ground, I continued walking deeper into the unknown depths of the cave.