Ellis stood in utter silence for a couple of seconds, his hand was on his chest—which was heavily rising up and going down.
It had been over three minutes since Northern had said what he said, and yet Ellis still couldn’t make sense of it.
‘He spared a monster?’
Just when he thought Northern was out of surprises, this happens?
‘I thought I had mastered the act of not getting surprised anymore.’
He really had.
But this was a different situation.
If truly Northern was strong enough to spare a monster…no, for a monster to surrender to him, then this changes all of Ellis’s evaluations of Northern.
Of course, he found Northern to be very interesting, strange, and strong in a lot of ways. All these ways, however, were coated in the shadows of mystery.
So while Ellis saw a certain value in Northern, it was a bit tough to compare him to other people he’d seen, especially in terms of combat.
Hence, it was quite understandable why he didn’t think Northern would beat Braham until he saw it with his own eyes.
Now, he was about to see something more.
And this would reinforce his mind and heart with the kind of man Northern is.
He gulped and looked at Northern, who was folding and unfolding his fist.
“So… uhm, you intend to fight it again, right.”
“Yes,” Northern responded curtly.
“And you have before…”
“Yes.”
“But you let it go?”
“Yes.”
Ellis’s brows furrowed together, he was silent for a couple of beats, before he exclaimed:
“But why?!”
Northern halfway turned his head with a raised brow as Ellis’s complaint of uncommon sense continued.
“Why would you, a drifter, spare a monster?”
Northern’s brow lowered; the question had a straightforward answer, at least to him.
“Because it surrendered? There’s no fun killing what has accepted to be killed.”
Ellis paused, horror frozen on his face with a slightly fallen mouth.
‘No fun killing what has accepted to be killed. What is this, a game reserve?’
At this point, he couldn’t understand anymore how this guy in front of him thought.
‘What are monsters to him? Or what are humans to him?’
Ellis was very confused.
“Well, I want you to follow me there and watch me fight it. This lesson is for you to learn; don’t just gawk. Learn…”
“In essence, you intend to show off to me?”
Northern cocked his head left and right, then responded, “I don’t know if we can call it a show off… since I’ll be fighting it in a completely disadvantaged state.”
Ellis stared at him more seriously, asking:
“What do you mean?”
“It’s simple. The last time we fought, I was kind of at my peak. I was with my best armor, best sword, and trying out really cool abilities. I guess all of that had come together to really intimidate the monster. If I confront it the same way, it will just surrender again.”
“Yes, that way, wouldn’t it be easy to kill it?”
Northern chuckled and scoffed at Ellis’s words.
“Easy? What has ‘easy’ done for you so far?”
He tapped Ellis’s flat chest and stepped forward.
As Northern’s legs delicately moved in front of each other, tracing a straight path to the entrance of the mansion, the white and brown leather armor that adorned his body—although slightly stained with black blood—slowly disintegrated into black sparks.
By the time Northern took a step into the mansion, he was walking in shirtless, only a thin linen of pants on him.
Ellis, belatedly realizing what Northern was onto, rushed forward shouting:
“Don’t tell me you’re intending to challenge it like that…!”
Northern paused, a step into the mansion, then he looked back with a corner of his lips raised.
“What do you think?”
Ellis’s legs slowly stopped two meters before Northern.
“Why would you face it unarmed? At least wear something,” he advised, his tone ringing with a heart-warming sincerity.
“I can easily defeat it with weapons; where is the enjoyment and growth in easily being able to do something? I think I want to see how hard this can get.”
“So you’re going to hunt with no armor and weapon.”
Northern clenched his fist and faced front.
“Don’t worry, I have more than enough.”
His eyes glowed with blue sparks as he walked inside the mansion.
Because the daylight star was slowly retrieving all its glow and retreating into the embrace of the mighty clouds, the environment was slowly becoming dark.
The slight darkness, however, made the inside of the mansion very dark; it was almost possible to touch the shadows that lurked around.
Grrrrr
Just as Northern had suspected, the monster slowly began to growl.
He didn’t need the light to be able to perfectly see that it was slowly coming towards him.
As it did, Northern looked at it, curling up a smile on his lips.
‘This is my first time looking at the profile of a monster. I wonder how it will be.’
Just as he thought, a panel appeared before his eyes, signifying the information about the monstrosity that slowly trudged towards him, eerily growling.
[Monster Profile]
Name: [Corpse Eater]
True Name: [unattained]
Soul Rank: [Savage]
Danger Level: [Abysmal]
Attribute: [Ravage Hunger], [Kin Of Darkness]
‘Uh, so it’s an Abysmal level and not apex… phew.’
Northern paused and cleaned his eyes, then he looked again.
‘Crap! I didn’t know monsters can have attributes too! Amazing!’
However, he didn’t have much time to think about this new discovery.
Almost blending with the darkness, the creature slowly crept out, hunched.
Five red orbs glared viciously from its maw.
‘I’m still surprised as to how its eyes ended up being in its mouth. Maybe some sort of an evolution…’
Now that he thought about it, Night Terror too underwent something similar.
The terror always had only a pair of arms, however, after becoming a devil rank it grew another pair.
‘How troublesome. So monsters evolve their body with new danger levels…’
His information on this subject matter was incomplete, so it was still an immature idea.
So far, just Night Terror and this monster had been his case studies.
And those danger levels had been quite significant ones.
It didn’t mean that when a monster was evolving from hazard level to disaster level, a physical evolution would always happen.
Or it could mean so.
Northern didn’t know… but now that he had the ability to [See] monsters whenever he wanted, he was bound to find out.
So this wasn’t something he needed to rush.
‘There’s a lot to be discovered. But first, let’s focus on what’s in front of us.’
Northern fixed his eyes on the hunched creature. It was a bipedal nonetheless—although it looked quadrupedal, but that was because of its hunched state.
Each limb ended with crude black claws. Muscles rolled beneath its glossy black skin like vicious cords, tightening with every slight movement.
Northern’s eyes did not waver, not even for a moment. Instead, he licked his lips and slowly hunched his back.
His arms dangled below, fists clenched. He was almost like another monster.
It was strange and uncomfortable to look at… but someone with an incredible sight like Ellis could see at a glance.
‘He perfectly copied the monster’s stance. No flaws at all!’
Ellis was shocked. He was standing at the entrance—a step inside the mansion.
And like Northern, he didn’t need light to see through the darkness, which was why he could see this perfectly well.
All of Northern’s form, his body positioning, had in an instant flowed seamlessly and perfectly, reforming into the monster that was standing before him.
From Ellis’s vantage point, it was just as if two Corpse Eaters were facing each other.
It was strange, uncomfortable; in fact, he didn’t know what to feel, but Ellis knew how impressive this feat was.
‘It was just like that time… does he have a copy ability? No, that does not make any sense… how then is that monster he commands explained? He commands two monsters, so I guess he has a taming ability… but this can’t be just…’
Ellis felt like his head was going to explode from all the streams of thoughts.
‘I probably should just focus on this moment like he had said,’ he decided internally.
Although it took extra effort to not think about what Northern’s talent could be, he tried his best to shove it behind his mind and carefully watched the battle that was about to unfurl before him.
The Corpse Eater that was growling a couple of seconds ago paused and became silent immediately when Northern took its form.
Its eyes were beginning to burn more viciously.
Northern didn’t know why, nor did he care.
“Come at me!” He declared with a maddening grin.
And at the sound of his voice, the Corpse Eater launched itself at Northern with blinding speed, claws extended and maw gaping open, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
