Book 5: Chapter 38

An absolutely massive army stretched across the horizon, scattered into different groups, one of which was pressed against the surrounding desert flats near the Oasis.

An army of Desert Pythons was engaged in battle, and he watched as projectiles flew across the desert floor, slamming into and exploding across the undead ranks.

The main army was handling their situation relatively well, except for the fact that they were clearly going all out against a forward force, while the undead had plenty in reserve.

They were clearly planning something, waiting for the right moment to spring the bulk of their forces and attack. And Aaron was an inch away from flying straight toward their forces and taking the battle to them when he spotted Terry.

At the forefront of the battle, the Desert Python leader was on his knees, and an undead warrior with black wings stood before him, radiating incredible power.

Terry might have pushed people’s buttons at times, but he couldn’t exactly leave him, and in a flash, he landed between them.

“You alright, Terry?” Aaron asked, his eyes locked on the powerful undead.

“I’m fine. Just—slipped. Yeah, that’s it. I slipped,” Terry said through panted breaths.

It was good to hear Terry still had his pride. But Aaron could feel his dwindling mana, and the mana absolutely pulsing from the undead reaver before him.

“Another elite from this world? My lucky day. I shall ascend faster than I had expected. Soon I won’t need this petty necromancer at all, and I can leave this place to stand by my lord’s side,” the undead said.

Aaron raised a brow. He already knew the Death God was involved in, well, everything. But were Darius’ minions also loyal to the Death God before him?

“If you want to leave my world, feel free to,” Aaron said. “But stick around and you won’t be returning to anybody’s side, mate.”

“Haha,” the Death Reaver chuckled. “You have no idea. I am so far above your pathetic world. Come, feed me your energy so that I may be rid of it sooner.”

Aaron was no fan of this creature’s arrogance, but he remembered the legion stretched across the desert. Even though his food supplies were stocked up, it was best not to go too overboard. Who knew how long this battle might rage for, and it was best to conserve energy if possible.

Cracking his neck, Aaron closed the distance between them. But he didn’t throw out attacks with unnecessary flashiness or power. He attacked with only what he needed to, relying on his tremendous skill and precision.

The Death Reaver was powerful, but so was Aaron, and not only was he equipped with far superior gear, but he had just come from a truly epic sparring session with Yendal, and so the undead creature kind of looked like a fighting underwater, and couldn’t swim… and had a learning disability.

However, Aaron quickly realized none of that mattered. He hit the thing a bunch of times, blasting away chunks of undead flesh, but it healed very quickly. Not only that, it wasn’t entirely terrible at fighting. It used its wings to block the most powerful attacks he threw at it, absorbing a [ Soul Shattering Strike ] when he decided to try and reap its soul.

But most of all, it was sapping his mana. Aaron had used reverse anchors himself, so he knew what was going on. But this was an entirely different level of energy-draining power.

Even Aaron doubted he could drain energy enough to keep up with chunks of his body being blasted away, like this creature was doing. And he was, by a decent margin, the greatest mana talent he knew.

Ernest had proven skilled with imbued anchors, but that didn’t come close to comparing with the talents Aaron had spread across multiple anchors.

But it was undeniable the longer the fight went on. To the naked eye, it might have looked entirely one-sided—Aaron giving the undead creature a brutal beatdown. But he could feel what was really happening. He was being drained while it refilled its reserves.

Maybe he just needed to be better, and with that thought, he increased the speed of his attacks, pummeling the undead into a ball of rotted flesh, feathers flying all over the place.

“Keep up with this!” Aaron roared as his fists turned into a blur of destruction.

Seeing the battle swing in the other direction, Terry flashed to his side, joining the mayhem with equally fast attacks.

But after several seconds of endless strikes, Aaron grew a little concerned. Why wasn’t it dead yet? How was it managing to keep up with healing as it was blasting into chunks and reforming against their fists?

Seconds later, Terry staggered backward. Whatever energy he had recovered from his short break, it had already been drained, and Aaron could feel the reaver greedily feeding on him.

“Get back, Terry!” He shouted. “I got this. Go help your Pythons; they need your strength!”

He was fairly certain that Terry wasn’t helping, just giving the reaver more mana to feed upon. And so he decided to feed the man’s ego. As long as it got him out of the fight.

“The Pythons? Oh, right,” Terry nodded. “You’re right, brother! I better go help them!”

Aaron sighed, but it was good news. Now he could focus on the reaver alone, and figure out how to overcome this annoying ability of its to recover.

If it could drain his mana and heal as quickly as he could destroy its body, then he would need to try a new tactic. Namely, having another attempt at reaping its soul.

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It would take more mana and aether, but he was just going to have to deal with that. Aaron threw numerous [ Soul Shattering Strikes ] in quick succession, and he could feel them taking effect.

The mana within the reaver rippled as it was dispelled and blasted away. Its wings were blown into feathers, but then a smoky, black shield appeared around it, absorbing several attacks and giving it time to reform.

Aaron landed another [ Soul Shattering Strike ], and the shield was destroyed, but the ground-up meat was now an undead man smirking at him. Not only that, but he could sense that it still had a good amount of mana left.

“Haha, not bad for a child. But you’ll need more than a little power to beat me. Whilst this body is basic, I came here with more experience than you can imagine. Enough experience that in a few weeks I was able to form a true core and unlock my reverse mana anchors. You understand, right? You don’t stand a chance. This body might only be level 180. A construct made from various chunks of flesh sewn together by that pathetic necromancer, but with a true core and mana anchors, I can draw on the power of a C-grade.”

“Can you?” Aaron cracked his neck. “That’s impressive.”

“More than impressive! It’s devastating!”

“If you say so, mate. Are we going to keep fighting?”

In truth, Aaron wasn’t too worried. Completed reverse mana anchors were undoubtedly a problem that needed solving. And, if he was being entirely honest, he didn’t know how he was going to do that. But that didn’t change the fact that compared to his skill and speed, it was kind of a coughing baby versus nuclear bomb situation. Only the coughing baby in this situation could absorb nuclear radiation and use it to rebuild its own body in less than a second.

Still, it was basically a target waiting to be hit, and that was exactly what Aaron did.

Normal attacks were out the window. The reaver could simply absorb mana and recover too quickly for them to work, regardless of how fast and well Aaron threw them.

But it did not like his [ Soul Shattering Strike ], nor his attempts to reap its soul, and soon the reaver was forced to return in kind.

“Haha, that’s it!”

Even though attacks were flying back at him now from the undead creature, it felt like a step in the right direction. The reaver had been happy to absorb attacks and drain its enemies, but he was forcing it to fight.

Shockwaves rippled out as the two clashed, Aaron dodging as his fists found purchase, and chunks of undead were disintegrated.

Aaron’s brow bent. So this was what it was like to fight someone with a completed anchor, and it was no easy task. But he was oddly glad. This undead creature might not be the only one, and it was a good chance to test his powers as he pushed himself to greater heights.

“Not bad!” Aaron shouted as the two of them became a blur of action. “I was trying to conserve myself for your buddies. But it looks like I’m going to have to go all out!”

Beast King

The army of beasts stretched out for miles as it marched on its target. Scouts had only recently returned, informing them of the defenses around the desert settlement, and the battle that had broken out.

So far, everything was falling into place as the Beast King had hoped. The humanoids were at each other’s throats, but he couldn’t just sit back and hope it turned out as he wished it to.

The Beast King himself knew that he could charge through the humanoid ranks, slaughtering hundreds with ease. He was at the peak of D-grade, after all, and as strong as he had ever been. And when he completed his quest to kill a humanoid champion, he would evolve into C-grade, claiming his rightful place at the peak of beast kind on their world. But for now, he restrained himself. The ants had suffered a defeat at the hand of hubris, and he didn’t want to follow their path.

However, he also knew that he couldn’t allow caution to lead to inaction. His legion had numbers to spare; any beast worth recruiting had joined his ranks. And he would put them to great use.

He would play his card carefully, not allowing any one faction of the humanoids to get ahead of one another.

His servants waited, bowed, hanging on his every word.

“Have the generals move their forces forward. We should command positions here, here, and here. But inform them to restrain themselves. Keep the first attacks against the settlement thin and scattered. We want to give the enemy things to think about. We want to stretch them thin, but we must be careful. We do not want to draw the full force of the enemy toward ourselves, understood?”

“Yes, beast king. I will inform the generals of your command.”

“Good. Be gone.”

His plan was a gamble. If the humanoids collectively attacked, they would likely lose. But if he could split the humanoids up, ensure that the strongest factions took the greatest losses, and weaken them in the process, then, when the time came, he could move forward and claim the core for himself.

It would be no easy fight. But there was still a chance that beasts could claim this world for themselves.

Raksha

The moment she had reached the peak of D-grade, Raksha had been given a quest from the System, which had drawn her deep into a precarious dungeon.

It was deadly, and the enemies were powerful. But nonetheless, she had ordered her followers to remain outside. If she couldn’t do this herself, then she would never beat the likes of people like Aaron, and that was simply not something she was willing to accept.

And it had paid off. She stood in the final chamber of the dungeon, a massive C-grade wyvern dead at her feet. It had been hard work, and she was covered in wounds, and perhaps she would have fallen then and there, had she not been resistant to the wyvern’s extraordinarily deadly poison.

She felt great satisfaction. This was proof of how far she had come. She was stronger than ever before, and the System message that appeared before her eyes made her gasp with joy.

She had done it. Reached C-grade before any other rankers on her world, and the influx of power that rushed into her was like nothing she had experienced before.

“Now, now I can take him,” she said, reveling in the bliss of power coursing through her body.

But she was interrupted. She felt them before they even entered the chamber, and her brow twitched in anger. Who were they to disobey an order?

“Sorry for the interruption, Queen of the depths.”

She turned. One of her followers was on his knees, awaiting her reply.

“I thought I said no one was to enter this dungeon.”

“Yes, you did. But this is urgently important.”

She snorted but held her wrath back.

“Speak.”

“The attack on the World Core has commenced. Our scouts say that both a horde of beasts and the largest legion of undead ever spotted are preparing to assault the desert settlement above the World Core. We also have word that Aaron Dober is on his way there.”

Raksha gritted her teeth. She had grown immensely, but she would’ve liked another week to test out her new powers. But she couldn’t let someone else claim the World Core.

“Ready our forces. We head to the World Core as soon as we’re able.”

She would kill Aaron and Darius, and there would no longer be any question of who was the most powerful on their world. The Core was just a bonus.

Well… perhaps Aaron could be reasoned with, assuming he was willing to bow and accept her place at the top. He had cooked that divine murlock, after all.