*Zoom*
As the bright flash of light disappeared, Lloyd opened his eyes and allowed them to shower themselves under the scene of destroyed and abandoned buildings.
While Lloyd might not be a tracker or a navigator, he still had senses far surpassing any other in his class group unless they were scouts since they had abilities to aid them with a skill like searching.
While there were many reasons as to why Lloyd had chosen the abandoned city at the center of the map, one of the most important reasons was because of the mana signatures he felt hiding inside the city.
'Monsters living in an abandoned city... They will most likely not be herbivores.' Lloyd thought to himself before looking at the buildings around him and narrowing his eyes.
'They can most likely fly or climb. However, house cats would thrive in an environment like this because rats and flies would likely thrive here too. So felines, insects, and rodents. There is always the chance of mutated humanoid species, but there is also a chance of lizards living here too.'
'The possibilities are narrow but endless. Hey, there might even be some creatures that no one had ever seen before.' Lloyd thought to himself as a smile pulled up on the corner of his lips.
*Screeeeech*
"And it looks like my first victim has offered itself to me. Honestly, how charitable." Lloyd chuckled before turning around and locking his eyes upon a creature zooming around in the skies.
'Nothing on this planet should go above the initial stages of the first commandment. This makes the entire thing a little boring, but I guess I have to settle for boring if I want to enter the academy.' Lloyd mused, and with that thought, the sound of a gunshot echoed throughout the better portion of the city as Lloyd turned into a blur, destroying the ground below his feet as he jumped towards the screeching insect in the sky.
*"First Blood: Lloyd Elrod"*
As the announcement rang throughout the island, Lloyd simply dropped to the ground with a giant mosquito following right behind him.
Slamming into the ground, it left a dust cloud in its wake at a nearby radius that was barely outside Lloyd's location.
'Wow... After killing all those first commandments, the amount of energy that just entered me feels so abysmal. Maybe it's because I've almost reached the threshold to becoming a half-step first commandment threshold.' Lloyd thought to himself, but he did not linger on it for too long.
*Squeek*
"Hmm?" Lloyd raised a brow, turned around, and stared into the darkness of the shadow between two buildings. Due to his night vision, he could see everything, but to anyone else, it would have looked like nothing more than a pair of red eyes staring at him with utmost ferocity.
*Sching*
The rat hiding in the shadows didn't know what had hit it, yet before it could truly understand its situation, its vision became black, with the last thing it saw being a pair of black boots walking away from it.
Screeches, roars, and screams echoed throughout the city, and even though Lloyd was no longer in the top 10, he was very close to it despite having only killed monsters so far.
[Mosquito Madness (Part 1/3) - Find the mosquito nest: 50 Points]
[Mosquito Madness (Part 2/3) - Kill 100 mosquitoes: 200 Points
[Mosquito Madness (Part 3/3) - Kill the mosquito queen: 500 Points]
"Hmm... That would easily put me in the top 10. Their bodies aren't worth much, but through this mission, I could earn 2 points through 1 mosquito. It is easily a much better use of my time." Lloyd mused aloud before opening up his map again.
'Mosquitos don't really build nests. They find undisturbed water and lay eggs in there. So, they are most likely going to be... Here.' Lloyd let out a smile as he pointed his finger at the largest lake within the city itself. It happened to be in the middle of a park that had chosen to surround the lake with trees.
'It's hot, meaning that place will most likely be humid. It is perfect for mosquito infestation.' Lloyd concluded, and without skipping a beat, he launched himself in a certain direction.
[18. Lloyd Elrod: 134 Points]
As Lloyd glided merely a few inches from the ground, he did not hesitate to cut down any living creature in his way, whether they were feline or rodent. To him, they were all the same.
It took him no more than 10 minutes to reach his destination, and when he finally did, he could not help but suck in a cold breath.
Hundreds. No... Thousands. Thousands of mosquitos, every single one of them being between the size of a human or double that. The scene before Lloyd could have been described as an entomophobia's worst nightmare.
Mosquitos spiraling upwards and reaching for the heavens. A sky turned dark from their presence alone, as well as an aura that could have been defined as truly terrifying in its own sense.
It wasn't powerful per se, yet it gave off such a lingering feeling of dread and despair that people would feel when facing an unstoppable enemy...
'What a useful defense mechanism. If the sight alone doesn't make them run away, it just makes them feel dread and despair, revealing the fear within them. It's almost genius.' Lloyd inwardly complimented.
Of course, he could have simply activated flame control and burned every single one of them to cinders, but of course, that would not be the correct decision unless he planned on exposing the fact that he, a shadow assassin, had somehow gotten even more abilities, from a different element at that.
'Think... THINK!'
Holding his temples, Lloyd paced backward and forwards, yet despite all his thinking, he could not come up with a solid plan that would take less than 30 minutes to execute.
However, that's when it hit him.
'I don't need to use my flames, [Shadow Clone]s or [Presence Concealment]. I don't even need 30 minutes to do it. It doesn't matter if it takes more or less time. I don't need to beat Zack; I just need to put my name on the leaderboards so I can have the eyes of both the recruiters and other students on me.' He thought with particular excitement in his voice.
"There may be thousands of you, but I only need to kill 100 regulars and that boss of yours. What do you think, a good plan?" He asked no one in particular, but despite that, his voice was loud enough for many of the mosquitos to hear him.
He could already imagine his family's reaction to such a stupid action on his part, yet he didn't care.
*BBZZZZZZZZ*
As if enraged, the buzzing seemed to multiply in strength as the flapping of the mosquito's wings vibrated the very air they beat on to stay afloat.
Their eyes had become bright red while their bloodlust seemed to coat the sky and city in a dark crimson hue.
This only alerted the rest of the storm as hundreds, if not thousands, of steel-like needles pointed themselves toward Lloyd. Some of the stronger and larger ones even pointed their sword-like front legs at Lloyd, yet he stood unperturbed by anything they threw at him.
"Are you done yet? I would have loved to handle this with blades, yet since you see that intimidation is the way to go, who am I to stop you?" Lloyd asked with a genuine curiosity in his voice, yet before the mosquitoes could act upon their threats, Lloyd spoke again, but this time his voice felt a thousand times colder.
Cold enough to turn the Sahara into an icy desert. To make the very grains of sand turn into pebbles of reflective glass, shining the very moon back upon itself with equal vibrance.
"However, since you've already gone down the route of intimidation-" Lloyd paused, with the silence between his words feeling like an eternity for all those who watched.
There Lloyd was, standing tall with his bright violet eyes, shining with luminance equal to only the stars above, being watched by millions as they looked upon their screens.
His face and name are broadcasted throughout the entire star system and live-streamed to several other star systems all over the galaxy, and being called a fool by every single one of them.
"-Why shouldn't I return the gesture?" Lloyd asked, his foot finally landing upon the mud as he took his first step forward.
And that's where it began.
*DOOOOOOM*
A dark cloud enveloped the park, yet this one was not like the last. It was dark with flashes of purple and just thick enough to make the crimson color of the world around him disappear.
The sky seemed to shift into the color of an ivory purple, yet the ground was not spared.
A bubble expanded out of Lloyd's body and reached the ends of the swarm. As the bubble moved, it seemed like space itself shifted around it while a power beyond anything the mosquitos had seen began to bubble within Lloyd.
The clouds wept and thundered while the winds howled like a mourning pack of wolves.
It felt like the gravity in the area had multiplied, while anything in it felt like several hands had gripped onto their throats, waiting and waiting to hear the sound of a snap. A snap that would never come.
"Let's see how you survive this, then. I hope you're not going to try and intimidate me again. It was quite pathetic the last time you tried."