Eo headed downstairs while thrashing his new toy wildly like a child.
"All of you monsters! I have a sharp object perfect for edgy creatures like you! Get it? Hahaha!"
Eo stabbed a Giant Beetle-type in the head while laughing like a maniac. Though Eo didn't necessarily need another weapon, as he could synthesize his own, Eo still wanted to use the cool green stick he had obtained. It was many times sharper than his own blades, but it was also heavier and had to be swung by hand. Eo was irked that his tangiform didn't interact with it very well.
A Firebat-type screeched behind Eo. He jumped up just as a column of flames slammed into the spot where he was standing a few seconds ago. Eo clung onto a broken section of the wall. Then he outstretched his hand and shot out a dagger, impaling the firebat in the eyes.
The massacre continued on for another half-hour as Eo effortlessly stabbed and slashed apart at least 40 more monsters. The hapless Phase Is would get ripped apart in the crossfire of Eo's attacks on the Phase IIs. At this point Eo had been engulfed in combat for so long that his energy level and control had noticeably increased.
Eo noticed his dexterity in wielding essence increased more rapidly when felling the higher Phase IIs than in comparison to the Phase Is. To increase it even further, Eo was actively searching for any Phase IIIs.
At the end of another hour, Eo was standing in a pile of a hundred dead monsters. His hideskin he had used and distributed to the Essov group before was now ripped into shreds. Eo tore it off, because by now it was more of a hindrance to his movements.
Eo tried closing the lobby doors before remembering that he had accidentally torn them off when he got out to fight. Instead, Eo dragged over heaps of corpses to block the doorway. He then went outside to see what was going on at the rooftop.
☆
Eo opened the hatch door to the roof and poked his head out.
Reya was battling two Phase IIIs.
"Need help?"
"No, I wanna do this myself."
Eo's hands were trembling in anticipation. He had to stop himself from attacking what in his eyes were large amounts of experience and loot.
Eo pouted as he sat out the fight.
The first Phase III was a large but slow tortoise-type, and the other a familiar-looking demon-type.
Eo waved at the demon-type.
"Hey! I killed one of your noobier cousins earlier!"
"Don't agitate it more!" Reya said, gritting through her teeth. "And especially not while I'm in the middle of fighting it!"
"Sheesh." Eo watched Reya repeatedly smite the demon-type with massive bolts of lightning.
The demon-type fell on its knees. Not because it was dead, but because it was stunned.
Eo ran over to it.
"Can I finish it off? Please?!"
Reya snatched the dagger out of Eo's hands, electrified it, and stabbed it into the fallen demon's head, which exploded like a watermelon.
Eo blinked.
"Great idea! Electricity and metal… why didn't I think about that before?"
"Because you always fight alone, dummy. Now help me with the ugly tortoise hordeling."
Eo looked at the tortoise's shell. It had several smoking blast marks indicating that Reya had used the same spammy technique as before, but it had no craters or other punctures.
"Wow Reya, so unoriginal. Can't you do something other than smite?"
"Well, look at its armor! It's got to be at least half a meter thick."
"Yeah… but it's just an evil land turtle… that's the size of a really really big evil land turtle..."
"You mean it's the size of a truck, right? And well, do you think your puny stabby needles can do anything against it?"
Eo pointed at the skin.
"Have you tried electrocuting those parts?"
Reya rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but it's way tougher than you think."
Eo scratched his head. He cautiously edged towards it. He then pulled out an emerald blade and tried poking the skin. It penetrated.
Eo was about to pedantically make a remark when the turtle's head snapped towards him. It was a really fast blur, but Eo managed to just barely jump back out of its reach. When its head retracted, Eo noticed the blade was in the turtle's mouth.
The beaky mouth snapped shut, shattering the blade into dozens of pieces.
"NOOOO!" Eo fell on his knees.
Reya looked at Eo curiously. "Why do you look like you've accidentally watched the death of many of your comrades while being unable to do anything?"
"Oh." Eo got up and brushed his hands. "Didn't know that was the name of a pose."
Eo looked at the tortoise again.
"Reya… how did this thing even get on the rooftop?"
Reya pointed at the sky. "A winged monster was carrying the turtle and demon in its talons. It set them down here."
Eo looked back at the giant tortoise again as it advanced towards them with the pace of a menacing rock. "That's… one pretty large monster."
"You don't say... By the way, I noticed it also had a black orb in its head."
"Hmm…" Eo started thinking. "Technically, this thing moves so slowly we could just walk away from it… but…"
"But?"
"...that's no fun. Let's have an egg-drop contest!"
Eo shot out thin but sturdy metal pillars from his palms, slamming into and pushing back the tortoise. Applying tangiform to it, he slowly pushed it towards the edge.
Reya caught on, and started spamming lightning at its feet to break up the tortoise's grip on the roof.
"Big lightning spam noob."
"Shut up."
After a grueling half-minute, the two pushed the tortoise off the edge, where it fell and cracked on the ground below.
Eo watched the yellow fluids spurt out of odd angles on its body.
"Best egg drop I've seen yet!"