Chapter 167 - 113 - The meaning of victory

Where did they go? Why am I alone? Did they leave me alone? Did they know this situation? Are they aware of what they did?!

Subconciously, I was sucking in mana from the environment to form this [demonic energy]. Emptying my mana pool is dangerous, humans cannot function without mana. In order to fix this, the body would start sucking in mana in a 'panicked state'. The mana rushing in burns our mana circuits, the leakage causing mana to rampage and fry our insides.

In order to prevent this from happening, [Demonic energy] was partially drawing mana from the environment instead of my mana pool. Slowly and steadily, the deeper I got into the dungeon, the more mana [Demonic energy] drew from the environment. Until finally, all of it was from the dungeon, and none from my pool. How many hours... Has it been. I remember crossing two other green lines. .. And a grey one. The environment had changed so much, I lost track of how far I walked.

****()

The party was there... Sweat dripped down the all their cheeks as battles slowly got more intense. The warrior's armour taking quite some beating. The mage's mana draining at a quicker rate. He was starting to use his potions. I only supported from the back by practicing [illusion] on the enemy, and [stealth] on my teammates. These skills had developed to tier 2 as a result.

Their fatigue was evident on their expressions, I would occasionally run to the front and kill an escaping enemy. The party frontliners, despite ranging in the 200s for their levels, could not cover all the enemies at one point. The enemies' levels had ranged in the higher parts of 150 to 200. Slowly, they became so troublesome, that I had to go to the front or the party would collapse...no I went to the front a 100 levels earlier...they were merely accompanying me to make sure I don't get killed.

I could hear cries of protest from the back, at the same time they were so muffled they escaped my mind in the blink of an eye.

My [Shadow step] grew to tier 3,gaining the ability of anti-gravity. Awesome! I was gaining ridiculous progress! Exerting my power, I invested all my stats into Agility and slaughtered the monsters that appear.

Trees, walls, breakable obstacles, rocks, wooden beams, and my allies. Everything around me except my targets became blurred, giving me an "ideal" path to travel on. I couldn't see anything except for "The shortest possible path" and "The optimal way to kill". Together they surface on my conscious, draining, fading, fogging, blurring everything away. I don't know what these are, but if I follow their instructions, I could...enjoy this!

With the effect of [shadow step]'s anti-gravity, I blasted freely into monster nest. Disregarding my environment, I crashed through most things while clad in [Demonic energy] to reach my targets as fast as possible. The optimal way to kill...the enemies' weak spots. They shone in my vision as if they were trying to make themselves obvious. Slashing, stabbing, scraping, slashing, swinging, thrusting, penetrating, pulling, ripping, destroying, cutting, excavating, removing, executing, evaporating, disintegrating, burning, frying, melting, vaporising.

It was only until I reached the forth green line. The neon green ore, dragging my mind back into reality. The adrenaline had finally stopped kicking in, fatigue consumed my core. My muscles were so sore that a status effect showed up on my status screen.

Ughh!! How pathetic... To come this far just to get killed. For now I'll form a barrier with [Demonic energy]. If they get close, I could just repell them with [demonic energy] bullets while I recover. If I fall asleep, they may break my barrier. I guess this was a trial of sorts.

****()

... 10 minutes had passed, waves of monsters kept coming. My body barely recovered a small bit of soreness in the legs and arms. I still don't have the strength to walk. My breathing has become quite erratic.

"@$$&!#/?$!!!"(Monsters)

Bursting into flames, the same [demonic energy] was used in waves to sweep across the dungeon floor, over and over and over and over. More grotesque creatures enter my vision as they soon also burst into flames. Even the creatures with extreme defences that can withstand the force of a meteor get affected by [demonic energy]. [Demonic energy] is a form of energy, it permeates through their feeble defences and consumes their insides. Nothing could be spared.

Say if my party caught up to me and tried to rescue me. Would they be spared from the ensuing death and destruction? The answer was no. After an hour, my physical strength had finally returned, my skin and expression gaining colour. Sitting there for an hour made my legs fall asleep, but it was better than getting killed. So I forced them to move.

The dreary aura of the monsters were no longer in the vicinity. Instead it was replaced by the repulsive aura of the corpses that fill the area. It was too hard to see, to tell if monster's had red blood. Anything and everything that came near was incinerated by my [Demonic energy] waves. But there was no mistake, as it can be observed from my status plate alone. I had gain an unbelievable amount of levels, there were a few humanoid burnt corpses. The only conclusion was that they were humans.

Name: Lilith

Class: assassin

Level: 412 Points: 0

Health: 50 000/50 000

Mana: 11 000/11 000

Strength: 53000

Vitality: 5000

Intelligence: 1100

Agility: 321 600

Class bonuses:

Str x 10

Int x 5

Agi x 30

Skills:

[Demonic energy]

[Stealth-tier 2]

[Illusion-tier 2]

[Dagger arts-tier 2]

[Shadow step-tier 2]

It seemed that every level below 101 gave 20 points, below 201 gave 40 points, below 301 gave 60 points and so on. In a short amount of time I had gathered a ridiculous amount of exp. My Agility had even rose to a tenth of the speed of light. I had even grown accustomed to using [demonic energy]. Sending it in waves around the area, I had an even more accurate sense than sight. It seemed that Cress was no where to be seen, it was a relief she wasn't caught up in my [demonic energy] attack.

However... The party members... Ughh!! The smell of burnt flesh permeated my surroundings along with the bleak lighting and the sounds of my stomach contents being ejected out. Why.... They didn't deserve this. Shit!.. What should I do... Moreover there's an unknown enemy to the side... Was this all his plans? To lure me to this area, this magic barrier... My skills were barely enough to feel the abnormal mana flow... I have to stand back up...

Mustering my strength into my limbs, I regained my core balance before looking into the general direction of the enemy that I detected. This pattern... No, mana signature, it was that of a demons... I see. They still have spies huh. But it was fine. Even as water rose around the barrier, containing my presence, and forcing me immobile. This enemy was as good as dead.