"Your souls shall be mine!!... That came out wrong, become my XP!!" Steve laughed as he unleashed a massive fireball towards them.
At the same time, he let go of his footing as he enhanced his suit and began free fall. He could come down slowly and more gently but why do that when you could cause more damage than necessary.
As soon as he touched the ground, a massive explosion was heard as a huge clearing was formed. Within it, there was only him and nothing else, the group was dead but he could feel it now.
A new form of energy invaded his body just before he felt a weird refreshing feeling. It was bizarre to think of and even more so to actually witness in action.
He had just metabolised the souls of these creatures, it was only a small percentage of it but it was still a soul nonetheless.
Ethically and morally speaking, this was bad and could result in future problems for him but who was talking about Ethics here.
His food for so long had been fellow humanoid creatures. This gate had completely changed him.
As for the problems he may cause in the future, he would think of that later. Following common sense, he should be expecting some genetic mutations due to absorbing their souls.
He couldn't care about that now though, he just needed to use this to his advantage to get out of here.
Reaching down to where his pockets would be, he picked out two small daggers. They weren't the ideal weapon for him but at the moment, the goal wasn't safety. It was simply to cause as much death as possible.
With a single step, Steve vanished from the area as the ground broke into several pieces. Long silvery lights flashed through the forest as several Treants were cut down.
He advanced deeper and deeper into the forest as he faced off against the Treants with more ease than normal. He felt himself grow much stronger with each kill.
Even without augmenting his suit, he was capable of generating a lot of power that matched it. Thankfully the suit was designed to enhance the natural physical strength of his body rather than just adding more strength to him.
It wasn't designed with fixed parameters, it was designed to continually boost his abilities at all times. The metal of the dagger reflected the sunlight creating several bright flashes of light as a Treant was killed each time.
On another side of the forest, the Automata could be seen swimming through the waves of Treants that attacked them. Their nature as an Automata made them almost impossible to kill.
Steve had reinforced their stone armour so they were even stronger than before.
The battle continued for hours with neither side backing down, Steve and his automaton had the stamina and overwhelming power while the Treants seemed to have the numbers. They Were never ending even after all this.
The moon was high up in the sky when he finally reached the centre of the forest. His entire body was covered in glowing white substance, tree sap.