"Yes! That's it" Kyle said out aloud.
But before he could do anything else, his skin began cracking. With a small explosion, Kyle burst into fragments of light.
Reiler, who was watching him from the side as he fanatically attacked the corpse, was surprised by his sudden outburst. For a moment, she doubted if Kyle had lost his sanity under the pressure. Just a moment ago, he exploded into light particles and resurrected. But after the resurrection, his approach to the fight changes completely.
Kyle, who had been very cautious earlier, slowly started attacking without any considerations. That was still fine, but now he suddenly began talking to himself despite knowing fully well that the strange creature that they were fighting against only attacked based on sound and touch. And sure enough, the next moment, the corpse twisted its upper body in a strange way and punched the ground in Kyle's direction.
[Wink Leap]
[Wink leap]
BOOOOOM!
With two continuous wink leaps, Kyle stepped out of the range of impact of the attack. Reiler who was watching from the side heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Kyle safely evade the attack. She felt completely useless. She could only watch as Kyle confronted the creature while she stood there beside the place where Kyle had placed her unconscious father from the very beginning.
She could also tell that Kyle had been intentionally avoiding this direction which limited his area of manoeuvring. This made her truly grateful towards him.
Just when Reiler was heaving a sigh of relief and thought that Kyle had regained his sanity, Kyle's next action completely crushed her hopes.
As soon as he dodged the attack, Kyle glanced at the timer which had been decreasing ever since the start of the fight.
[0:48]
Seeing that he only had 48 seconds left, Kyle immediately charged towards the corpse while gulping another vial of mana recovery potion.
[Energy cut!]
[Energy cut!]
[Energy cut!]
[Wink leap!]
[Prime rage!]
Kyle flashed past the three attacks and appeared before the corpse. He immediately executed the new skill that he had learned from the briefcase which he was supposed to receive when he ascended to the second floor of the Ascension Temple. Although Kyle's entire body froze and he couldn't even move a muscle, his momentum still threw Kyle towards the corpse.
Under the shocked gaze of Reiler, hundreds of vials containing liquids of different colours suddenly appeared before Kyle . Kyle's entire body slammed into the corpse and the hundreds of glass vials were crushed between them.
'Boooom!'
As expected, the next moment Kyle found himself in the same semi-transparent state once again and a familiar notification appeared before him.
[Used life token × 1]
[Choose the site of revival..]
[Revival on site/ Revival at the Cathedral of Asle (Aseles city)]
'Resurrection on site' Kyle said before he even read the complete notification. 'On site' didn't mean the exact point where one had perished, instead it was any location within close proximity that had the least chance of being attacked in the duration in which the illusionary body turned real.
Kyle felt extreme pain for a brief second in which all the flesh, bones, nerves, etc of his body were regenerated, but luckily it lasted only for a brief instant.
Reiler saw Kyle turn into blood mist and then, the blood mist disintegrated into particles of light before disappearing in thin air. At the same time, the corpse was covered in various colourful liquids from its half-decimated head to its toes. Soon after coming in contact with the corpse, all the colourful liquids disappeared and the weird creature let out a sharp shriek which nearly tore down her eardrums.
At this exact moment, Kyle appeared once again.
'Kirrrraaaaahhhhhh!' As soon as Kyle reappeared, he heard a blood- cuddling shrieking sound made by the corpse. Kyle immediately distanced himself from the corpse and looked at its status
[Karcellen corpse]
[HP: 97560/???]
[Debuff: Mana corruption]
[-2000 HP/sec]
[Stats:]
[Strength: ?? (???)] [Agility: ?? (???)]
[Stamina: ?? (???)] [Endurance: ?? (???)]
[Intelligence: 0] [Energy affinity: 0]
Kyle calculated that at the current rate, when the time limit ended after forty-six seconds, the corpse would still have more than five thousand points left to its HP. He checked his storage bracelet to find that he still had some potions left.
[Energy cut!]
[Energy cut!]
[Energy cut!]
[Energy cut!]
[...]
[...]
Once again, Kyle began attacking the corpse without any breaks
[200]
[200]
[210]
[210]
[...]
[...]
The corpse began to visibly disintegrate with a sizzling sound and a peculiar smell spread in the surroundings. It let out shrieks repeatedly. The damage caused by each attack also started increasing as the skin of the corpse disintegrated and its internals became direct targets of Kyle's attacks. At the beginning, Kyle changed his position after every two attacks, but he later saw that the corpse had completely stopped moving.
The corpse had no intelligence to begin with and acted only based on a small part of instincts left after the death of its soul. As such, when it began to receive the signals of touch or rather in this case burning sensation from all over its body, the last remaining instincts of its body were overwhelmed and it just froze on the place.
Kyle, who had noticed this abnormality, decided to play it safe and continued attacking from a distance while occasionally chugging potions to replenish his MEP. Kyle continued to attack and didn't stop despite his damage value making up for the surplus HP which should have been left at the end of the time limit.
He knew that he wouldn't even have any time left for regrets if the corpse somehow managed to stay alive with just 1 HP point left. Because if that happened, just after the fifth minute ended, all the stats of the corpse would immediately be doubled and its HP would be restored to what it was at the beginning of the five minutes.
At that time, it would be a thousand times more difficult to defeat the corpse and he only had a few vials of mana recovery potion left on him.
Finally, under Kyle's crazed barrage of attacks, the corpse completely disintegrated into thin air with a light blue flame at the end of the forty-second second.
"Yo-you killed it!" Reiler said as she jumped towards Kyle in excitement.
"Stop right there!" Kyle suddenly yelled at her. Reiler who was approaching Kyle stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she heard Kyle's voice with a complicated expression, but before she could think anything else, Kyle's body turned red and began radiating out heat.
"What is happening to you? Let me...." Kyle's body temperature kept on increasing rapidly and before she could complete her sentence, Reiler saw Kyle burst into a bloody mist with a small explosion which pushed away the debris of the trees that had been destroyed by the impact of the attacks of the corpse.
Although she had seen Kyle turn in blood mist thrice under the attacks of the corpse and she knew that he would resurrect once again, Reiler felt her eyes well up with tears when she saw him exploding.
Suddenly, she felt an intense itching all over her body and she blacked out the next moment.
"Three world credits attained."
"Starting the transformation."
She vaguely heard a voice speak two sentences in her ears as she fell into a deep sleep.
'Phew!' Kyle let out a deep breath as he saw the familiar notification before him for the third time.
[Used life token × 1]
[Choose the site of revival..]
[Revival on site/ Revival at the Cathedral of Asle (Aseles city)]
Kyle immediately chose the option to resurrect on site and went through the same process of regeneration of his physical body once again.
When Kyle opened his eyes again, he was startled to find a thick beam of light that covered the entire area between the ground and the sky in the corner of his eyes. When he looked towards it, he was a bit shocked to find a familiar silhouette bathing in the light of the beam. It was Reiler, the little girl who was covered in the light.
After some time, the beam of light disappeared, leaving behind a cocoon of rainbow coloured shells.
'Is this.....transcendence!' Although Kyle thought it in the tone of a question, he was more than sure that it was the case.
After two minutes, the cocoon broke and a brand new Reiler Salts emerged from it. The twelve years old little girl had grown into a teenager who should be around fifteen years old. Her facial features were more defined than they were a few minutes ago and she turned into a stunning beauty even by Kyle's standards, which were higher than any person that he had met in his entire life.
Reiler looked at her new body with interest and satisfaction as soon as she opened her eyes. After that, she immediately turned towards Kyle and gave him an honest and pure smile before turning back and heading in the direction of her unconscious father.
Kyle smiled wryly. He was truly just saying for the sake of it when he thought that he would not enact the scene of 'hero saves the beauty' because she was too young for him to be interested in her. And now… Behold! She turned into a beauty who should not be much younger than him. Although she had turned into a beauty exactly his type and grown up both physically and mentally, he was still not interested in her from a relationship point of view.
Seeing her, Kyle felt a sense of excitement in his heart. If she could achieve transcendence just by throwing some beast canines on the corpse only one time, shouldn't his rewards be much better.
"Why are you making such a weird expression while looking at me?" Reiler asked Kyle. She thought that he was curious about her transformation. She never thought that he would be interested in her because from what she had observed till now, Kyle wasn't the least bit interested in having a relationship, not just with her, but with any girl. At least her woman's intuition told her so.
"Nothing. I am wondering that since you got the reward of Transcendence just for throwing some beast canines randomly, shouldn't my rewards be greater?" Kyle spoke what was on his mind without any reservation.
Reiler felt something pierce her heart when she heard Kyle's words. Although it was the truth, damn that hurt.
'Couldn't he put it a bit more nicely.' She thought about all his actions from the moment she had bumped into him till now and a slight smile formed on her lips.
"But I don't think that I have anything precious enough to pay you with for your contributions and also, I wasn't the one who issued you the mission regarding the strange creature. But we can still discuss what you want as a reward and I will try my best to meet your demands."