Calling the situation at the other end of the rift ‘wild’ utting it mildly.
There was ny in this battle, it was a dogfight.
‘Just like how most battles end up.’
Xaren gripped the sword he had collected and looked at his surroundings as he thought this. He’d mao get used to his new body in the past 2 weeks, however, this was his first time wielding a sword in this life.
He was worried about weight and other things but his worries vanished like smoke when he felt the Swordsmanship skill’s effects activate.
Xaren’s body adjusted—his stance being mrounded and banced, his feet naturally finding the perfect spag. His grip on the on shifted, firming up in a way that felt both secure and flexible, allowing freater trol and fluidity of movement.
It was as if his muscles remembered teiques he learnt in his past life despite knowing this was not the case.
Taking a breath, Xaren rushed forward as he analysed the enemies before him.
Flying beings with radiant white feathered wings, their forms covered by a soft, golden light. Their expressions were stern, and they wielded swords of pure energy, hag and sshing at demons and monsters.
Tall and slender beings with sharp, angur features and long ears, firing longbows of magic that knocked flying demons out of the sky.
Amidst them, the occasional giant towered, their massive frames casting long shadows over the battlefield. With stone-like skin and clubs the size of trees, they were behemoths of brute strength, crushing anything in their path.
‘Angels, Elves and…are the giants our allies?’
Answering his question was a tall giant who wielded a giant club to bash ten demons out of the sky in one move.
‘Clearly not.’
Just as he thought that, someone cried out loudly as if threatening him and charged towards him.
“DIE!!”
‘A wingless angel? Must be unrahen.’
Xaren made this analysis as he kicked off the ground and used his gravity magic, lessening his weight to give himself a speed burst.
“?!”
The angel’s eyes widened and he swung his light bde frantically, trying to stop Xaren’s charge, but Xaren tilted his body to dodge the bde and then swung his sword.
Xaren’s bde sshed the angel’s neck as he dashed past him, then he killed his momentum before lurg bad stabbing the angel from behind, ending their life.
[Level Up]
‘Finally!’
Without a sed’s dey, Xaren dashed forward, using his sword to slice the arrows fired at him by some elves while his sed hand jured a magic circle.
“Dark Bind!”
He called out and the single-ringed magic circle fshed, right before a simir one maed underh the legs of the elf and released tendrils of darkhat tched onto their limbs to hold them down.
While he was distracted by the tendrils, Xaren jured another circle and with a short t, he fired a ball of bck fmes at the elf.
“Fire Magic: Fireball!”
The ball of bck fire tore through the air at breakneck speed and collided with the chest of the elf, exploding right after and sending charred flesh flying.
Xaren dashed forward with a short burst of speed, running his hand across his bde as he cast a ‘Fire Infusion’ spell on it.
His bde was engulfed with bck fmes and he swung it down on the back of an angel fighting against a demo, tearing through the angel’s shoulder with ease and sending white blood spraying.
Just before he could pull out his bde to deal the finishing blow, Xaren sensed danger a go of his on without hesitation, jumping to the side to avoid the beam of light that pierced the ground where he stood a sed ago.
He looked up to see anel attack from above, but before he could even say a word, the demo he had aided leapt at that ao distract it, giving Xaren time to get his sword and finish off the one on the ground.
Then he used gravity magic to lighten his body and jump in the air, doubling the weight of his bde as he brought it down on the back of the arying to fend off the demo.
“GAK!!”
The angel screamed out in pain and the demo seized the opportunity, swiping its cws and sshing the angel’s chest.
Blood sprayed out, but the angel wasn’t dead yet. He tried to use light magic but Xaren unched a fireball at his magic circle, destroying it. And like everyone whose magic was destroyed before they pleted the casting, the angel faced spell backsh.
The demo roared and swiped the angel’s neck, while Xaren unched another fireball that finished him off.
[Level Up] x4
“?! I knew he was higher since he took many attacks without dying but 4 levels?”
Xaren had only just killed his third oppo, but he was already level 58. Just as he moved his gaze to the angel’s corpse, he saw a floating ball of light atop its bad he remembered that he hadn’t taken any souls so far.
“Grey demon helped. Take it.”
The demo growled those words before turning around and charging towards a nearby group of elves, while Xaren quickly reached out to the angel’s soul.
‘Is this safe to eat?’
Angels were light beings. They were on the positive side of the universe’s pority spectrum and st he checked; their powers were a bit harmful against beings on the ive side.
Xaren covered his hand with demoniergy before reag for the angel’s soul, and as his fingers closed around it, the demoniergy tched onto the soul, tendrils of darkness seeping into the radiant sphere.
In seds, the once-brilliant soul was corrupted, its light extinguished and repced by an ominous pitch-bck hue.
Without hesitation, Xaren devoured the corrupted soul.
As it entered his body, his eyes widened in shock as he felt magic power c through him. His magic power increased slightly—a ge so subtle it would normally go unnoticed.
But this ‘slight increase’ was substantial enough that Xarehe difference.
This was no ordinary boost; it signified an increase in his energy stat level.
Demons like Xaren devoured souls to grow stronger, and these souls, essentially trated forms of energy, directly tributed to the enha of their stat levels.
Each Stat had three sub ranks, the ive sub ranks ‘X-’, the ral sub ranks ‘X’, and the Positive sub ranks ‘X+’.
Within each sub-rank, there were Stat Levels that number 1-100. When one gains a stat; D- for example, that stat is at ‘D- Level 1’. With every main level increase, that stat ‘D- Level’ increases, eventually reag Level 100, whereupon, one gains the ‘D Level 1’ stat.
Take that to ‘D Level 100’ and one gains the ‘D+ Level 1’ stat, and so on.
In Xaren’s case now, this soul had taken his D+ Level from 8 to 16 in one jump, so he felt the increase which should have been gradual and unnoticeable.
His eyes glinting, Xaren charged at the elves nearby and together with the demo from before, defeated them; however, this time, Xarehe demo have the st blows.
The two exged a look and then jumped at anroup of elves, killing them and dev their souls.
Just when Xaren was about to pick up one of the souls, it suddenly flew out of his read into the air, surprising him.
“What?”
“Mid-Rank demon, collect 1 soul for every five.”
The Demo expio help him uand and Xaren turo where he saw the soul fly and ihere were a group of Mid-Rank demons with some strange-looking devices in hand.
‘So, the souls we devour are our pay and they take one in five as tax?’
He analogised it as such, before notig that the Mid-Ranks weren’t fighting, they were just floating in the air and the battlefield. Most of the Low-rank demons weren’t fighting as well.
Xaren turned and saw that on the angels’ side of things, the Mid-Rank angels were also silent, warily watg the Mid-Rank demons while the Low-Ranked ones who had gained wings ordered the unranked ones.
‘What’s going on?’
He wao ask the demo but he saw that it had already charged at a trio of angels so he just shook his head and joi.
Xaren jured a magic cires and lightened his body with gravity manipution, allowing him to move with extra agility.
‘Wait a sec…I’m using gravity manipution without using my Unique Skill?’
It finally occurred to him that this was indeed what had been happening and a quice at his status board saw the 0 in his Gravity Magic Tier had now bee 1.
‘When did it ge?’
