It had already been about an hour since Kim entered the den, he had already come across a few young horned demonic bear's while on his way. And he was even doing battle against two such beasts right now.
*Slash*
*shing*
Loud metallic noises could be heard as Kim's blade met with the iron-like claws of the young demonic bear's. An young demonic bear was about a low grade seven beast at most and at the very least, a mid level grade eight monster. And Kim was facing off against two of them, one of which was a grade eight while the other was a grade seven.
*Shing*
The three creatures clashed, birthing even more loud noises which bounced off of the den's hollow walls. The den itself was illuminated by glowing blue stones which seemed to be implanted everywhere in it's walls, the stones along with the tunnel like nature of the dens gave the place a cool atmosphere which was probably one of the living conditions of the monster species.
"Hup!" Kim exclaimed as he jumped backwards in an attempt to gain some distance from the two monsters who were barraging him with claw attacks.
Kim landed a few meters away from the two beasts, and on his feet. He brought the sword he was holding up to an attacking stance and the blade's pointed tip was pointing directly at the two creatures who just growled threateningly in response.
"GROWLL..."
"Growl...growl".
It was quite obvious to Kim which one of the two beasts that stared him down was the stronger one. An adult bear had dark purple skin, as well as two large and distinct horns. They also had an extremely large build, powerful muscles, razor sharp teeth, a good height which surpassed most normal humans and sharp claws that could slice through skin as if it were paper.
The younger versions of these very same beasts had all the same features, except that they only had a single horn which wasn't as distinct, their teeth and claws were less sharper, their build was much smaller, they were much shorter—about normal human height and their muscles were a bit weaker.
Of the two that stood in front of Kim, one had a more distinct horns, more powerful build and muscles, sharper claws and fangs, as well as a greater height and mass than the other. That very same monster was growling the loudest and was by far more aggressive than the other.
But in the face of all this, Kim didn't lose his composure and prepared his next attack.
All of the heavenly tempest sword techniques were products of the enlightenment that the first sword saint achieved, he achieved a total of four enlightenments, which make up the four main techniques of the sword art, and each of those techniques had a short epiphany attached to it. Each of these epiphanies told the four ways by which a prideful tempest destroyed the heavens that looked down on it.
Kim, steadying his breathing, remembered the epiphany that the first ever heavenly tempest sword saint had concerning one of the four main attacks of the sword art.
Heavenly Tempest heavenward sword stab. It was one of the first two main techniques that Kim had learnt, and the epiphany goes as follows:
And so the tempest who dreamed of one day destroying the heavens above charged at the so called heaven with all his might, he rushed through the clouds and shattered the skies. And in a single powerful charge, he Emereged victorious.
The epiphany wasn't something that could be understood normally, only intimately and after several months of training and meditation.The technique required one to imagine the opponent as the 'heavens' and try to replicate the tempest's actions, which usually takes a really long time to achieve. And yet, Kim managed to achieve all this in less than twenty days.
"Heavenly Tempest heavenward sword stab!" Kim said out loud, which was followed by a system message.
*Ding*
[
You have activated the skill; Heavenly tempest heavenward sword stab lv.3!
]
*Tsuchht*
The system message was followed by blue sparks which appeared all over Kim's body, his Qi wrapped around the sword and Kim charged forward, and the larger beast responded to this action by also charging straight at Kim while letting out a loud roar.
"Roar!!"
The two bodies collided, followed by a loud;
*Boom!*
There was a large explosion as the two bodies collided, but this time though, Kim easily overcame the beast and caused not only a lot of wounds all over its body but he also took one of it's arms. The creature let out another roar before falling to the ground. Kim didn't waste any time in ending the clash by beheading the beast, before turning all of his attention to the weaker one.
After witnessing the human, Kim, kill it's stronger and older breathen, the weaker beast attempted to run away, but Kim wasn't about to let it escape that easily.
"Heavenly tempest movement technique!" He shouted.
*Ding*
[
You have activated the skill: Heavenly tempest movement technique lv.3!
]
Qi wrapped around Kim's body as he activated the skill and in just a few swift movements, he was already stood right behind the fleeing beast.
He swung his sword down and instantly beheaded the last of the two young horned demonic bear's.
*Slice*
A sound of metal cutting through flesh was heard as Kim's sword drew a bloody arc around the beast's neck, and the creature's head flew off before falling to the ground with a 'splat'.
"Phew! I did it"
Kim looked at the dead beast's body and grinned a satisfied grin before staring straight ahead and into to the distance. He was silent as he thought, and after a while he opened his mouth and said to no one in particular.
"The monsters will only get stronger from here on out, maybe I should take a quick break and rest a little bit".
He sat down and closed his eyes to rest, but all of his other senses were fully alert.
...
It had been about four hours since Kim entered the den, he had long since ended his break and he even ran into a few more monsters along his path.
The difficulty of the beasts that appeared just kept increasing, from two young demonic bear's to one adult and one young bear, from that to two adults appearing at once, and by now he had to death with five to six adult demonic bear's appearing at once.
The battles got more intense each time and although most of his skills leveled up, Kim started sustaining more injuries, as well as building up a lot more fatigue. He took periodic breaks to avoid overstraining his body which may cause him to pass out as he couldn't afford to lose consciousness in such a dangerous place. But unfortunately, he had forgotten to bring any healing potions with him. A mistake he deeply regretted.
"I need to finish this up quickly, Lucas is waiting for me on the outside".
He said as he took a deep breath while staring at a huge stone door with intricate designs that stood in front of him. On the other side of the huge door was definitely going to be the boss room, or in this case the den master's room.
He placed both his arms on the door and pushed.
"Hmm?"
He didn't expect the door to just open normally, but it was a lot harder to open than expected. Channelling more power than previously, Kim pushed the door with all his strength. And it finally opened slightly, but just enough for a single normal sized human to comfortably walk through.
He did and entered the room and as soon as he saw what lay in the center of the room, a chill ran down his spine.
.
.
.
.