Chapter 364 - 364: Terrifying Vine Army (2)

Something was about to happen.

Aiden could feel it.

His gut was telling him that he needed to wrap things up in this dungeon and head out. Whatever was happening outside, he had no idea what it was yet, but the feeling in his heart was becoming increasingly urgent.

Because of that...

He really needed to speed things up.

"Sorry, but I can't play around with you anymore."

Aiden looked at the twenty Ashen Commanders surrounding him.

"You guys sure are fun to play with..."

A small smile appeared on his face.

"But now, you will have to die."

With those words...

Aiden's eyes flashed with a blinding green glow.

And as if responding to his will...

Which was exactly what was happening to begin with...

The five hundred Vine Warriors that had been oozing an aura at the A-Rank level now suddenly moved.

Their bodies trembled.

Then they turned into countless streams of emerald vines.

SHHHHH!

The vines rushed toward Aiden at terrifying speed.

Five hundred warriors.

Five hundred bodies.

Five hundred consciousnesses.

All of them returned to their source.

They surged toward the massive Emerald Vine Warrior King Avatar and merged into it.

The moment they touched Aiden's avatar...

They disappeared inside.

The damaged and destroyed parts of the Warrior King began to regenerate.

Vines wrapped around the shredded portions of his body.

They intertwined.

They twisted.

They coagulated.

They formed new layers of armor over the areas that had been torn apart.

The massive cracks running through his body sealed themselves.

The missing sections of his chest regenerated.

His damaged arms reconstructed.

His legs returned to their former condition.

The shredded armor covering his body reformed layer by layer.

For a brief moment, the process looked almost chaotic.

But then...

Everything became complete.

The destruction that had covered Aiden's body vanished.

The torn and shredded Emerald Vine Warrior King that had barely been standing only moments ago...

Was completely restored.

Back to full.

But this time...

Something was different.

Very different.

The aura coming from Aiden's body suddenly exploded.

BOOOOOOM!

The entire battlefield trembled.

A terrifying wave of emerald energy spread outward from him, sweeping across the surrounding area like an invisible storm.

The aura he was releasing now was nearly ten times greater than before.

Ten times.

The twenty S-Rank Ashen Monsters immediately felt it.

Their expressions changed.

One took a step backward.

Then another.

And then...

All twenty of them took a step back in unison.

Their bodies trembled.

They were shaking in their boots.

Of course...

They weren't actually wearing boots.

But they were definitely shaking.

It wasn't dramatic.

It wasn't some exaggerated trembling caused by fear alone.

They were simply...

Extremely tense.

Their instincts were screaming at them.

Run.

Flee.

Do not fight this thing.

Because the aura this Vine-made Warrior King was releasing right now...

Was almost on par with the aura of their Lord.

The realization hit them like a thunderbolt.

Their pupils contracted.

Their expressions became solemn.

Could this human...

Could this monster actually be close to becoming an Ascendant?

How?

How could a human become this strong?

They didn't understand.

There was no way they could understand.

A human...

An existence they had never considered worthy of standing above them...

Had actually reached a level where his aura was almost comparable to that of their Lord.

But one thing they did understand.

They no longer wanted to fight this monster.

Unfortunately...

Did they dare not fight him?

The answer was a pure...

No.

Absolutely not.

They feared their Lord far more.

After all, their Lord was someone who was only one step away from becoming an Ascendant.

So between offending their Lord...

And giving it their all in an attempt to take down this monstrous human...

The answer couldn't have been any clearer.

They would have to give it their all.

The Ashen Commanders exchanged glances.

For a brief moment, none of them spoke.

Then...

They nodded.

Their decision had been made.

"RAAAAAAAAH!"

All twenty commanders screamed.

Their auras erupted simultaneously.

They summoned every ounce of power within their bodies and released it to the fullest.

BOOM!

The ground quaked.

The surrounding air trembled.

Their bodies began swelling as their muscles expanded and their monstrous physiques grew even more imposing.

Their auras surged upward like pillars of destructive energy.

Flames.

Dark energy.

Wind.

Raw physical strength.

Various forms of power erupted from their bodies.

The battlefield itself seemed to bend beneath the pressure of twenty S-Rank Monsters going all out.

Aiden, however...

In his newly evolved Emerald Vine Armor, simply looked at the commanders with a calm gaze.

A small smile appeared on his face.

Then it vanished.

"Alright..."

He raised his weapon slightly.

"Time to finish this."

With that thought...

Aiden raised his hand high.

The emerald vines around his arm immediately began shifting.

They twisted.

They intertwined.

They compressed.

Then they coagulated.

The vines rapidly gathered together, becoming denser and harder with every passing moment.

The mass of vines eventually formed a massive war axe.

It was an enormous weapon.

One side was shaped like a giant hammer.

The other side...

Was a terrifyingly sharp axe.

The hammerhead was thick and brutal, clearly capable of crushing anything unfortunate enough to stand beneath it.

The axe blade, meanwhile, curved outward with a vicious edge that radiated an intense emerald glow.

Aiden gripped the enormous weapon.

His aura exploded.

BOOOOOOM!

And then...

He exploded forward.

His enormous body disappeared from his original position.

The ground beneath his feet shattered from the sheer force of his movement.

He attacked the twenty commanders with insane ferocity and brutality.

His war axe descended.

BOOM!

The twenty Ashen Commanders fought back.

Or at least...

They tried.

The result was a massacre.

There was simply no other way to describe it.

The first commander raised both arms to block.

Aiden swung the hammer side of his weapon.

BAAAAAANG!

The impact crushed the commander's defense.

Its body was sent crashing into the ground.

Before it could recover...

The axe side of the weapon swept across.

SHING!

Blood exploded.

Another commander lost an arm.

Another attempted to attack Aiden from behind.

Aiden twisted.

His massive body moved with shocking speed.

The axe flashed.

The monster was split apart.

Another tried to attack his chest.

Aiden simply raised his shield.

BOOM!

The attack was blocked.

His other hand swung.

CRACK!

The hammer smashed into the monster's skull.

The commander's body was sent flying.

And the battle continued.

The twenty powerful S-Rank Monsters were slaughtered one after another.

It simply couldn't be helped.

One had to understand something.

The only reason Aiden had been struggling against the twenty monsters to begin with...

Was because he had been busy fighting their army.

His Vine Warriors each had their own wisp of consciousness controlling them.

But the main thing was...

They were all created from his main Emerald Vine Source.

Meaning they took a portion of his power away.

That was a big temporary loss.

A very big one.

But what Aiden gained in return...

Was ten times more valuable.

Ever since he had mastered and grasped the full extent of his Emerald Vine Form, he had known that it was truly an epic, overpowered form.

There was a reason he ranked it above Horned Titan Mode.

After all...

While Horned Titan Mode might seem to be the strongest in terms of pure physicality...

It wasn't truly a match for Emerald Vine Mode when the latter was fully utilized.

The Emerald Vine could become stronger than metal when fully synchronized.

Its defensive ability was absurd.

Its regeneration was monstrous.

Its versatility was practically limitless.

But its best ability...

The ability that made it truly terrifying...

Was the same ability that the Vine Army had been using earlier.

The ability to take away the energy and life force of every opponent they killed.

All of that stolen energy and life force could then be converted into Emerald Energy.

And when that happened...

The Emerald Vine would receive a sudden, massive boost.

But that wasn't even the end of it.

Even after the massive temporary boost vanished...

Up to thirty percent of that boost would merge with the Emerald Vine and become permanent.

That was the truly terrifying part.

The Emerald Vine didn't simply consume energy.

It grew from what it consumed.

And right now...

Aiden wasn't only back at his normal peak in terms of the full utilization of his Emerald Vine.

No.

He was now carrying the boost of Emerald Energy converted through the gathered life force of over eight hundred B-Rank Monsters...

And seven hundred A-Rank Monsters.

That enormous amount of accumulated energy had been gathered by his Vine Warriors.

And now...

It had returned to him.

That, in conjunction with everything else...

Had pushed the Emerald Vine to the absolute peak of its current capability.

Its total power was now dangerously close to reaching the Ascendant Realm.

And against a pre-Ascendant-level warrior...

These S-Rank Monsters, although monstrous and powerful in their own right, were completely no match for Aiden right now.

There was simply too large of a gap.

They had no choice but to be slaughtered.

Even if they fought...

It was meaningless.

They would die either way.

The lucky ones were crushed by the hammer.

The unlucky ones were split into several pieces.

Some were sliced in half.

Others were cut into quarters.

Some were divided into multiple pieces before they even had the chance to understand what had happened.

And the most unlucky ones...

Were both sliced apart and crushed.

Damn.

Truly unlucky.

Sincerely, though...

They could all be considered unlucky.

Unlucky to be a monster.

Unlucky to become Aiden's opponent.

And most importantly...

Unlucky to be standing against this blonde beast who was currently in a hurry to clear the Portal.

In simple words...

They all died.

Soon...

All twenty monsters were dead.

Some had been crushed.

Some had been sliced open.

Some had suffered both.

The battlefield that had once been filled with twenty powerful S-Rank Commanders had become eerily quiet.

Aiden really didn't pay much attention to them.

His gaze was instead locked onto the weapon in his hand.

He slowly lowered it.

His eyes moved toward the hammer side of the enormous war axe.

Aiden stared at it for a few seconds.

Then...

A smile appeared on his face.

"This kinda looks like Ron's own."

He chuckled softly.