The central region of the pile of rocks was overflowing with slimes, there were so many slimes that several slimes used their companions as the ground to walk on top of each other. More tried to enter the congested area. In addition, there was another thing that caught everyone's attention.
A small flaming tennis ball, made entirely of fire and full of mana, was flying towards the pile of slimes. Soon these two collided, however, nothing happened immediately.
The small sphere passed through 1, 2, 3 slimes without exploding, when it reached the fourth slime that was of the fire element, the ball penetrated its body without any problems.
It hit the red core squarely, destroying it instantly and causing the ball to burst into flames.
When the small core disintegrated, all of its internal mana was released. Edart's fire sphere that was nearby began to consume this mana of the same element, which resulted in a great increase in the strength of the spell.
—"Bommm!!!!!!!!" A strong explosion hit the central region, killing dozens of slimes instantly. Dozens more were thrown far away, some crashed against the rocks, others flew meters above where they were.
Edart, who was on one of the paths between the rocks, felt a strong, hot wind blowing against him and the few slimes that were on the path were thrown towards him.
— "Wow, what a huge explosion, how did that happen? I'm sure it shouldn't be like that." He later said that he came out of his state of shock upon seeing such an explosion.
Edart didn't have time and started to get up, getting rid of the slimes that flew towards him.
Returning to the end of the path, Edart prepared himself for the next slimes that would come. While doing so, he spoke to Eris.
— "Have you found out how many slimes were killed by that explosion?"
— ["Wait a minute, that place has become a mess."]
Not wanting to disturb her work and since there were no slimes attacking him, he looked at his own status.
— ["Edart. Health: 32/47. Mana: 17/52. Stamina: 22/40."]
Seeing his low health and feeling pain in his shoulder, without hesitation, he grabbed two of the three 'Life Balls' and ate them. Soon, his health returned to the top and the pain subsided.
— ["I'm done, you managed to kill 84 this time, and more than 5 dozen suffered serious damage and were thrown away."]
— "So many, that's great news. But why was this number so different from the previous one? Also, it seemed like the explosion was much bigger than before."
— ["I can't say for sure, but it seems like when the fireball exploded, it absorbed a large amount of pure and concentrated mana. Since I didn't have time and wasn't expecting it, I couldn't find out much, except that there was much more mana at the time of the explosion than when it was thrown."]
— "I see, we can try to find out what happened afterwards. Oh, here they come again."
As they talked, the first slime of the new wave arrived, a staggering slime with several wounds. Without waiting for its attack, Edart cut it with his sword.
— "Only 487 more to go, it will be a long battle."
…
— ["You killed a 'Blue Slime (Level: 17).'"].
— ["You gained 75 XP."].
Another half hour passed and this was the one hundred and twenty-first slime killed during this period.
Sweat dripped down Edart's forehead, soaking his entire shirt. The last few minutes were the most tiring and painful, as the slimes grew stronger and more resilient, surviving long enough to launch their attacks.
— "There is no end to this!!!!!! I have to do something or I won't get out of here alive."
Edart needed to kill as many as possible in the shortest time possible, however, his only spell was the fireball, which if it hit the slimes squarely and had a lot of them together, could kill about 25 if they were low level.
As he tried to think of something, the slimes kept coming. Using all his concentration and every point of intelligence he had, he tried to think of something.
After thinking a lot, only the idea of replicating the effect from before seemed to be strong enough.
— "Eris, you said that the previous spell managed to absorb concentrated mana, am I right?"
— ["Yes, that's what seemed to happen. Do you want to repeat what happened?"]
— "That's the idea."
— ["But we have no idea what caused it, it's unlikely that it could happen again."]
— "True, however, it's our best bet to get out of here. Can you identify any fire slimes in the center? If there are more than one together, that would be better."
— ["Wait a moment, I'll check."] Throughout their conversation, the slimes kept coming and Edart was getting more tired with each passing moment. He needed to find a way to end this fight soon.
— ["There are some fire slimes and to the left there is a group of 3 close together."] Eris still didn't understand what he was planning.
— "You mentioned concentrated and pure mana, maybe it was the fire slime's core that provided it. Although I'm not sure, it's worth a try."
— ["It might work."] She said, finally understanding his intentions.
Edart wasted no time and began preparing for his final all-or-nothing attack. As he fought against the constant flow of slime, he looked at his status.
— ["Edart. Health: 27/47. Mana 21/52. Stamina: 7/40."]
Looking at the amount of mana left, he spoke in a low voice.
— "It will have to do."
— "Oh, great world, the power of powers. Grant me…"
At that very moment, he began to chant the spell. It was not an easy task to perform, the slimes were stronger and attacked more frequently. At some points, Edart almost lost control of the spell, but he managed to maintain it.
— "… the power to summon fire from within volcanoes, concentrated…"
Even so, he suffered some reactions from the chaotic mana and small wounds were opened on his left arm.
As the spell neared its end, Edart manipulated his mana and directed it to the palm of his left hand.
— "into a ball of fire, so that I can throw it at my enemies and reduce them to ash…"
Using all his remaining strength to eliminate the two slimes in front of him, Edart went to the curve and raised his left hand, in which a red sphere formed. Manipulating his remaining mana so that it fused with the sphere, he spoke the last part of the spell while trying to aim in the right direction.
— "FIREBALL"
A fireball larger than normal flew out not in a straight line, but swaying from side to side, almost hitting the wall of the corridor.
Not wasting time and not wanting to see if he would succeed or fail, Edart threw himself to the end of the path. A second passed, then another without anything happening. Just when he thought his spell had failed, he heard a huge explosion, not on the same level as the previous one, but similar.
Due to the greater amount of mana that Edart injected into the spell, the explosion was considerably larger, killing many slimes at the point of impact.
The sphere hit a point in front of the fire slimes, which could not resist the initial explosion and as the flames expanded, their bodies were consumed, leaving only their cores.
When their cores were engulfed by the flames, they managed to resist at first, however, they did not hold out for long and soon broke into thousands of pieces.
Thus, the mana contained within them was expelled and consumed by the flame, considerably increasing the temperature of the fire.
—"This heat! It was not what I expected, but it should help kill more." Feeling the temperature increase considerably, Edart was happy and hoped for the best result.
— ["You killed a 'Blue Slime (Level: 17).'"].
— ["You gained 75 XP."].
— ["You killed a 'Green Slime (Level: 10).'"].
— ["You gained 45 XP."].
— ["You killed a 'Purple Slime (Level: 15).'"].
— ["You gained 68 XP."].
— ["You killed a 'Red Slime (Level: 20).'"].
— ["You gained 100 XP."].
Messages began to appear in his vision and a smile appeared on his face. As soon as the heat subsided, Edart wasted no time and stood up, prepared to fight the slimes that never appeared.
Realizing this, he advanced along the path, trying to find out what happened, he passed through the empty path and reached the center. There were several bodies of slimes scattered and piled up everywhere.
Looking around, Edart did not find any living slimes, he knew he had not killed them all. Curious to know what was happening, he climbed up on a rock to be able to observe from further away.
When he got up there and looked around, he could not find any slimes, looking further away, he saw slimes of different colors jumping away from the pile of rocks he was on.
—"What the hell is going on here?" The slimes that had wanted his life recently were now running away as if he were a monster. At that moment, he heard Eris' voice.
— ["I think I know what might have happened."] As soon as she finished speaking, letters began to appear in his vision.
— ["A hunter is someone who hunts prey for sustenance, when hunting ceases to be for sustenance, the name hunter does not do justice to the person."]
— ["You have earned a new title."]
— ["Title: Slime Slayer. (Legendary)."]
— ["Description: By carrying out a senseless massacre against these poor slimes, you have managed to generate a deep fear of death in their cores. Whenever a slime sees you, it will see death in person and in an attempt to survive, it will flee as far away from you as possible."]
— ["Effect: You deal double damage and take half the damage when fighting slimes and all slimes are afraid of you, preferring to flee rather than fight."]
This title was lost among the slimes' death messages, so he did not see it immediately.
— "But I was the victim here." He had gained a good advantage with this title to fight the slimes, which was a great thing for him, however, this description made it seem like he was the monster here who went after the poor slimes to torment their lives.
After thinking about what happened today, he kept quiet about it. Maybe the system had a point. Not wanting to waste any more time on this, he shifted his focus to his current problem.
— "Are there any slimes left behind?"
— ["I don't sense any slime around, it would be a good time to get out of here"]
— "Yes, but before that, let's see if we can find anything good here."
Edart returned to the burned area and searched it for anything useful. In addition to the bodies of the slimes, Edart found broken cores that he simply ignored. Since he didn't have much mana left, he chose two bodies and used 'collect' on them.
One of the slimes was red, of the fire element, and the other was purple, which was of the lightning element. Having nothing else to do here, he left as quickly as possible, before any slime had a chance to return.
His path through the plain was smooth, without any slime in sight and, as the distance to the forest was small, everything was peaceful. Arriving at the place where he left his bags, he picked up both, putting the cloth one on his back and the leaf one, tying it around his waist.
With one last look at the plain, Edart began his journey back to the cabin.
— "Eris, keep an eye out for any potential danger, if I get caught by surprise, it will be another headache." Edart was not at his peak state and, if a rabbit affected by the abyss appeared, he could win, however, it would be a complicated thing to do.
— ["I will do my best."] She replied enthusiastically.
Feeling more at ease with her answer, Edart left in a hurry to get home, after all, today was a great slaughter and he could not wait to see how strong he had become.