****
Amon stood in the clearing of a forest, surrounded by 7 remaining ghoul beasts.
Though he would have preferred hunting them down one by one, he had to keep his mana expenditure under control.
He still had 4 phases to go through after all.
With his right arm coated in blood, he stood ready to respond at any moment.
One of the ghoul beasts to his left perked up as his foot lightly scratched over the rough ground and instantly pounced upon him.
With his plan working, Amon raised his left hand towards the beast and fired off a lightning bolt.
[To your right!] Zephyra warned.
Not bothering to look at it, his head took a sharp turn to the side as he felt 3 pincers scratch against his arm.
CLANG!
Due to his artifact effect and blood coating, the pincers were barely able to scratch against his arm.
Grabbing its head and separating it from his arm, he sent a jolt through its head, making it explode into a mushy mess.
The blood splattered over Amon's mask, painting it black.
[Behind you!] Another warning came.
The headless body of the beast fell to the ground and he spun on his heel, turning to face two ghoul beasts inches away from him.
At that moment, his spatial ring glowed in a faint blue hue and two blobs of blood appeared next to him.
Each blob turned into two thick sharp strings of blood and instantly shot out towards the two beasts.
The strings pierced through one of each beast's eyes, making them scream in pain.
SLASH! SLASH!
""SHREEEK!""
Grabbing their bodies with both his hands, Amon sent a jolt of electricity from his left hand, ending one beast's life.
For the second one, he simply folded his blood-coated hand with as much force as he could muster, and within some seconds, the body of the beast erupted in a big bloody mess.
However, there was no time to relax.
Three of these monsters were still alive.
And exactly at that moment, the goddess inside his head warned him again.
[3 from behind you!]
Sensing they were close, he had no time to turn back without getting hurt.
So, he used one of his skills and instantly disappeared from his position.
'[Voidstep]'
Appearing behind all of them, he saw them pounce at nothing but thin air.
Confused, the beasts weren't given any moment to react as Amon reached them instantly and killed all three of them with lightning and the two bloodstrings.
He was done.
The first phase had been completed.
And as if to notify him about it, he felt the ground of the island rumble with intensity.
He fell to the ground but the shaking didn't stop for quite a while.
Finally, after a minute, it came to a halt.
Standing up, Amon started to look around for any changes that might have happened.
But before that, he quickly noticed the fist-sized seven blue orbs that were rolling around on the floor.
In the heat of the battle, he had failed to notice them but now he did.
They were mana cores.
And each monster he had killed got him one which was an event never seen before in history.
They were very rare to emerge from a monster let alone seven of them at the same time.
This was why they were so pricey in the market as well.
However, he had just found seven of them in a single wave. And this was just about to increase.
He hadn't found them in the first three beasts he had sliced up which made him wonder if it was actually meant to be that way.
Storing all of them in his inventory and the blood from the monsters in his spatial ring, Amon now started to wander around, looking for the entrance to the second floor.
Eventually, he reached the other side of the island, on the rock beachy sand.
But there was on significant change from the other side.
There was now a wide staircase made with red bricks, heading deep down into the bloody ocean.
Looking around, he saw no other thing that stood out except for this.
Taking a deep breath, he started to head down the staircase, which he thought was also an entrance to the 2nd phase.
***
After minutes of walking, he finally arrived in what seemed to be a whole new area.
It was a large rocky cave, with giant pointy stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling and stalagmites growing out of the floor.
The floor was uneven with many blood puddles here and there.
Fortunately, a luminary liquid dripped down from the stalactites, which illuminated the whole cave.
It was Fractile. One of the main ingredients that were used to make potions in the market.
With his guard raised, Amon now started to traverse further into the wide spacious cave.
And before long, he sensed 4 presences around him, two of them hiding behind stalagmites while two hid behind stalactites.
The phase 2 was said to carry 15 ghoul beasts, each one slightly stronger than the previous phase.
Without waiting, he quickly formed another 3 blobs of blood around him.
Artifact Capacity: [35L/10000L]
The sound of blood perked their bat-like ears, and instantly the 2 beasts behind the stalactites shot for him.
Manipulating 2 of them into two thick strings again, Amon got ready for battle.
The beasts lashed out at him with their pincers which he efficiently countered with his bloodstrings that clashed with them.
CLANG!
The clash echoed loudly in the cave, making Amon click his tongue in frustration.
This would attract all of the ghoul beasts towards him now.
Going toe to toe with their jaws and pincers by using his strings, he finally managed to coat his arm in blood.
And in the next moment, he delivered a bone-cracking punch to the mouth of one beast, breaking its pincers.
The beast shot back with a scream of pain.
Now left alone, the second was no match for 2 strings at once and quickly succumbed to a fatal death.
However, as soon as that happened, Amon suddenly felt two sharp jaws closing in around his both shoulders.
"ARGHH!" He screamed in pain.
Quickly grabbing the head of one of the beasts with his blood arm, he closed his first with force, while also bearing the constant pain he was getting.
After a few seconds of using his full force, the head of the beast finally caved into the force, exploding in blood.
Taking his attention away, he focused on the other beast on his right shoulder and quickly sent electricity coursing through its body at full strength.
Soon, it died as well, sending its body crashing into the ground.
Amon noticed two deep gashes on his shoulder now, with blood pouring out of them.
But he had no time to focus on that.
Because as he looked around him, he now saw 11 ghoul beasts surrounding him.
The new ones with wings were hiding behind stalactites while the others were hiding behind stalagmites.
Realizing the situation he was in, he couldn't help but curse.
"Fuck…."
_____________________
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