BOOM!
A man covered in a complete black get up, floated several centimeters in the air, as if deigning to touch the impure grounds of the forest.
His right hand was raised casually beside him, blocking the large paw of a cat like beast.
He slapped the paw of the beast gently, but by the strength of the wind that blew as an aftermath, one could tell that the 'casual' slap held immense force.
The high ranking beast was immediately dazed by the hit as it floated in the air.
It was just in that state for about half a second, but that time was more than enough for the Old Man to launch a second hit directly at it's head.
BOOM!!
The eight foot tall beast rolled it's way into the forest, breaking down any obstacle in it's path, and leaving a trail of destruction.
The Old Man looked at 'his' hand and noticed it was bleeding. It shouldn't take long at all for an injury this small to heal, so he figured that there was something else at play, poison.
The black beast had scratched his hand when the Old Man blocked it's attack, and it seemed those black claws it had was poisonous.
Grabbing his right hand with his other, he pulled apart the hand and threw it away.
*Bang*
Suddenly a new hand shot out of his arm and then he placed it in his pocket.
"Are you done with your little warm up?"
The Old Man knew that a rank 6 was not as weak as this. The beast was cowardly, but it was only just trying to make him lose his head thinking that he had the upper 'hand', and then go all out at the last moment, finishing 'Asher' without him knowing what hit him.
The black leopard was smart, so it was especially dangerous. But there was something that it would probably only realize later on.
And that was that the more killing aura seeped out of the human, the stronger he could get. So going all out from the start should have been it's tactic, unfortunately.
The black leopard slowly got up from the ground it was lying on and went over to pick Asher's cut out hand.
Taking a few crunches and munches to relish in the extraordinary taste, the leopard grounded the hand before swallowing it joyfully.
Soon after, the leopard crouched down before suddenly disappearing.
It was as if the laws of sound were not working at that moment. This was because of how insanely quiet the forest became at the leopard's disappearance. Or maybe the phenomenon was more like time stopping, because of how the former rustling leaves stood still.
Regardless, the leopard's speed had definitely increased.
BOOM!!!
At practically the exact same time it vanished, the leopard appeared in front of the Old Man, striking it's long claws at the man and bringing the beats of turmoil and chaos back to the forest.
The Old Man blocked the attack with a round black shield that had just appeared from nowhere, but the leopard's claw tore through the shield with ease, and sent him flying back.
But before he could even balance himself in the air, he suddenly felt the claws of the leopard reaching for his vulnerable back.
Sucking back in some of the red aura surrounding him to increase his strength, he was barely able to block the incoming attack with the black greatsword sword now in his hands.
*Shing*
The black sword met a similar fate to the shield.
As if the leopard had split in two, another one fell down at the old man, baring it's sharp fangs at his head.
The old man looked up, noticing the leopard in time and realizing that the other one in front of him was just an after image.
He stretched his arms to his side and a pair of one handed swords appeared in them.
With no time to waste, he immediately struck at the leopard's head with two of his swords. But when they hit the leopard, the beast just turned into black ripples and faded.
"Hm?" The Old Man's bored eyes opened a bit in surprise.
'No wonder the boy wants this beast.' The beast seemed to have an innate talent that resembled Asher's base abilities.
"Speed, stealth, illusions." The old man was suddenly surrounded by a dozen of the same black leopard.
"Ha." He sighed.
"Maybe I should start paying a little attention to the kid's nerdy stuff."
The Old Man was in Asher's head, yes, but he had a mind of his own. So the fact that Asher knew something didn't mean that he did too.
They shared the same eyes, but different views, so obviously their fighting styles were different. Without his abilities, the way Asher fought was by disorganizing his enemies with his fast and untraceable movements and then finishing them off. It was just like how this black leopard did it. But the Old Man was more proficient in strength type battles, bulldozing his way to victory.
Asher's body however, wasn't trained for his methods, and that was where the killing aura came in. By pushing out the aura and absorbing it back into his body, it was like he was taking out stat points and adding it to his strength points. Something only he could do out of both his and Asher's mind.
One of the leopards jumped straight at the floating man. There was no sound when it leapt, but the Old Man knew not to think of it as a fake. This was because the leopard was always that silent.
He casually swung one of the swords in his hands and cut that leopard in half. The black leopard blew off with the wind, meaning it was a fake.
Soon, three of them jumped at him.
"Hm." The Old Man didn't hear any of them make a sound as they leapt, but he noticed something different; the foot of one of the leopards had come in contact with a leaf move it backwards.
The Old Man then ignored two of the leopards and slashed his dual blades at the head specific beast that had moved the leaf.
When the beasts got close enough, surprisingly, the Old Man kicked the head of one of the two beasts he singled out instead.
BANG!
ROAR!
The beast growled as it got knocked back by the Old Man's kick. Its plan had been seen through by the tasty human.
"Good plan, but charades like don't work on my— wait, what am I doing talking to a beast?" He shook his head, knowing the beast couldn't understand human language, although it was especially conniving.
He pointed a sword at the beast with the other on his shoulder.
"Go berserk already! Your hide is useless as it is now."
The only reason the Old Man was stalling was so he could get the monster to enhance itself.
Some beasts could go berserk, and when they did, Asher could draw more potential out of the materials he obtains from their carcasses with his blacksmith ability, [Hephaestus]. And this particular beast was sure to be able to. But if it couldn't or the old man's patience ran out, then he would just absorb every killing aura in the environment and finish it up as quickly as he could.
ROAR!!!
The black leopard was really infuriated about his failing trick, so it crouched down again, but this time it didn't jump forward. It split in two, with one heading for the Old Man, and the other still on the ground.
Soon, more leopards were jumping out of the crouching leopard's body like it was a beast dispensing machine.
The first leopard jumped at 'Asher', but the man simply swung one of his swords at it.
*Clang*
Unexpectedly, the one at the front parried the sword away.
The Old Man swung his other sword diagonally at the beast's head, but as soon as the sword touched it, it blew off like stained breeze.
The other leopards approached him and the Old Man soon found out that all the beasts could hit him. But the moment he was about to land a critical hit on one of them, they'd poof away.
The Old Man blocked another attack with his sword and pushed the leopard on him away.
Looking up front, he could see the crouching black leopard still sending out clones incessantly.
The other leopards the Old Man was fighting weren't as strong as the original. Because if they were, the sword he was using would have a lot more than just the scratches it was getting.
CLANG!
One of the swords suddenly broke as it got hit by a leopard.
The Old Man threw the broken sword into the head of that leopard, turning it into black smoke.
As he parried the hit from another and stabbed it, he suddenly felt another aura other than his red killing aura, in the atmosphere.
The Old Man looked at the beast shooting out clones from it's body. The beast's skin was turning from black to red, leaving a little black lines to form stripes. It's bones looked like they were rearranging themselves as it grew bigger in size.
A couple seconds later and the beast now looked more like a red tiger than a black leopard, standing at nine feet tall on all fours.
The beast rose from it's crouching position and stopped sending out clones.
It had already bought itself enough time to enter this state and kill this human annoying but tasty human after all. The clones it sent out were very weak, as it needed a lot of energy and some time to enter the berserk state. And while they were many, it saw that the Old Man couldn't even deal with those clones effectively. This gave the now red tiger more courage and belief that it could kill the pesky human with one air swipe of its claws. It didn't know where the man's scary guns and traps were, but it was now pretty confident that even those things weren't capable of changing the tide of the fight.
If one looked closely, they would probably notice that the tiger had on what seemed to be a condescending smirk on its face as he looked at the human that had just stupidly played into it's trap.
Getting ready for it's final leap, it pushed the wind around it violently by just crouching, and the red killing aura surrounding the atmosphere disappeared in an instant.
BOOM!!!
With the complete annihilation of the red aura in the atmosphere, it went for a leap and found itself flying into a... black hole?
[You have slain the rank 6 Berserk Beast: Nightmare Cat.
EXP will be stored in your soul seal.]
The tiger's soul got sucked into the deep void in Asher's soul without even knowing how it died.
"Ew." The Old Man took his fist out of the red tiger's skull and exclaimed blankly.
The tiger wasn't the one who erased the killing aura from the atmosphere, he was.
After dusting the blood and brain bits from his hand, the Old Man stored the beast's dead body into Asher's pouch, and whistled his way out of the forest.
"The boy should be waking up soon." He sighed.
However, even after walking out of the forest, and into a city, Asher had still not regained control over his body.
"Hey kid, wake up!"
"..."
"Huh? No response."
He looked up at the shining blue sky and the fluffy white clouds. He imagined what this island would look like from above, and it was a beautiful view.
*snap*
At the snap of his fingers, a building lit up with flames. "Heh." It still works.
The Old Man continued to walk forward, through the chaos he had just wrought. He had acknowledged that he didn't need to see the beautiful colours the world had to offer. In the first place, everything was all black and white to him.
And the only way he could think of, of how to light up his world, was actually lighting it up.
Well, in a ball of flames that is.