Abel frowned. There's something odd about this quill rat. Maybe it was a pack leader. Talk about back luck. He didn't expect to see one right after getting out of the Rogue's Encampment.
It wasn't the worst situation to be in, though. Whether it was a pack leader or not, quill rats were the weakest hell creatures out there. The one Abel encountered just now was only a little bit harder to kill. Yeah, "harder to kill" as in it could be killed with five fireballs.
Wait a second. If it's just an ordinary quill rat, it could be killed with one or two fireballs that's not even upgraded. Abel's fireball was in level seven. If he had to use five of them to kill this pack leader, that means it was already stronger than a knight's commander in terms of its defensive capability.
The leader one used its final strength to let out a loud, terrible squeak, which spread far away from the Blood Moor. Just to be safe, Abel threw another fireball at the dying rat.
A dark shadow flew over the quill rat's corpse. It was then absorbed into the Horadric Cube on his right arm. Although Abel was sure that it was dead, he didn't let his guard down at all. If anything, his power of the Will was telling him that danger was coming.
Suddenly, the ground started shaking. There was a giant horde of creatures moving towards Abel.
Abel was nervous, of course. He took out his shield and prepared to withdraw, but as he heard the many, many, many squeaks in the air, he gave up on the idea of retreating.
"Solid Defense!" Abel screamed, and his golden combat qi surrounded his shield, which was then connected to the ground below him.
Dang Dang Dang Dang DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANG DANGDANGDANDANGDANGDANGDDANDANDANDA...
There were hundreds of quill rats shooting thorns at Abel. It was literally a rain of spikes. As the shield was not large enough, it could only cover some key components of his body. Fortunately, however, Abel used the Bennett family's secret knights technique, "solid defense" just in time. As his shield was connected to the ground, he created a barrier large enough to cover up his entire body.
When was this attack ever going to end? While they weren't doing a lot of damage to Abel, he had to use up a lot of his combat qi to guard against them. Actually, it was the first time that he felt like he didn't have enough combat qi in him. This was a very rare discovery for him because his qi core was much larger (many times over, even) than that of any ordinary knight.
This just couldn't go on. While connecting to his private storage box with his power of the Will, Abel reached for the improved version of his 130 skill exploding big sword. As it instantly appeared in his hand, he threw it as far towards his front as he could.
Although he couldn't see anything outside the shield, his power of the Will would tell him everything.
"3, 2, 1, Boom!"
As Abel counted, a huge explosion followed. With some metal shards in them, a huge amount of soil splattered on his shield. If he wasn't using his "solid defense," he would've been gravely injured there. He did have to use up a large amount of his combat qi in such a short time, but still.
In a split second, a large number of shadows rushed into the Horadric Cube. This time, Abel made sure that these shadows belonged to the souls of quill rats. Just now, there wasn't any attack coming from the direction that he threw his exploding big sword at.
Without giving it too much thought, another exploding big sword appeared in Abel's hand. As he felt an attack coming from a certain direction, he just threw it towards there.
Boom.
And again.
Boom.
The rest of the pack was still attacking. Were these creatures not afraid of death? As Abel's combat qi was about to run, his last explosive sword appeared in his hand.
Boom.
While the exploding big sword could do both physical and fire damage, Abel still had to throw out four of them before he was able to clear off his enemies. When he was done, the world around him was back to being quiet. He couldn't feel any attack on his shield.
The Horadric Cube was like a bottomless container, silently absorbing the countless souls that Abel has just claimed. After letting out a sigh of relief, Abel finally withdrew his magic shield. There was a pile of dead quill rats in front of him. While most of them were turned into mush, some of them were still half-alive.
Abel picked up his ice magic sword and killed the struggling ones. To his discovery, the neck was the vital spot of these rats. As soon as he poked his blade in their necks, these rats would stop struggling almost immediately.
Suddenly, the power of the Will warned Abel that a long thorn was coming at him, to which Abel raised the shield and deflected it. After that, he threw the ice magic sword and nailed the quill rat that was attacking him to the ground.
Abel stretched out his right index finger. As he shot out a fireball, it quickly killed that rat as it was struggling on the ground. While it was already injured, it would've died to this level 7 fireball even if it was in perfect condition.
As it turned out, fireballs were more convenient than the ice magic sword if Abel wanted to clear off these quill rats. As he started tapping with his right hand's fingers, he continued to hit the quill rats that were trying to make an escape.
This was a slaughter. The quill rats that had completely lost their ability to fight back. When Abel's mana ran out, he picked up the ice magic sword and continued to kill these quill rats. He got good at it. It was like picking oysters out of their shells. By inserting his blade into the rat's neck, he could easily separate the head from the body. He was doing all of this with the guide of his power of the Will, of course.
As many souls entered into his right arm, a dark golden light flashed out from the Horadric Cube. Instead of opening the cube right away, Abel decided to hurry up and kill all the remaining quill rats first. After he was done, he quickly opened up the cube with his finger.
Inside the Horadric Cube, there was the Tome of Town Portal, private storage box, and the kong kong spiritual beast bag. Nothing was lost.
"What's this?" Abel said as he found a dark golden crystal bottle at the corner of the cube. He used the power of the Will to take it in his hand.
It was a wide-based crystal bottle, and by looking through the transparent glass that was used to make, Abel could see that the liquid inside had a dark golden shade to it.
What kind of potion could be this color? Abel opened it as carefully as he could. The smell was kind of weird. Yet, regardless of how sketchy it seemed, a voice was telling him that he had to drink.
It was his own soul. It was demanding that he had to drink this potion. If Abel had to guess, this potion must be synthesized by the quill rats that he killed, but if the Horadric Cube has just made drink made out of corrupted souls, would be safe actually to have a taste of it?
Since the potion was in dark gold quality, the Horadric Cube just showed its name "soul potion" without any description.