?Seven adult Gem Jaguars, formidable Low Tier-1 Monsters, attacked a small horde of a dozen Tinophants. The Tinophants, also Tier-1 Monsters, were known for their resilience, thanks to their tough hide. However, their sluggishness and limited means of attack left them vulnerable. Their weight and the special sense to detect the least dangerous routes were the only factors preventing their extinction.
Unfortunately, their special sense didn’t allow them to avoid all danger. It merely guided them through the most secure path. That was about it.
The fastest Gem Jaguar reached one of the smaller Tinophants and pounced on it. The Tinophant screamed at the top of its lungs, but that wasn’t enough to scare the Gem Jaguar. The predator was hungry and wouldn’t let go of its meal just because it screamed a little.
The Tinophant threw its body around, trying to remove the Gem Jaguar, but it was to no avail. The Gem Jaguar’s claws pierced through the Tinophant’s hide into its flesh, drawing out the herbivores’ blood. The Gem Jaguar’s razor-sharp fangs were just about to dig into the Tinophant’s neck when a whitish-silver flash passed through the Gem Jaguar.
All of a sudden, the Gem Jaguar lost control of its body. Its legs gave way, and the world spun in a dizzying blur. Its head detached from its neck, landing on the wet soil with a resounding thud, a testament to its defeat.
A fountain of blood spurted in all directions, drenching the screaming Tinophant.
Daniel glanced at the Tinophant for a moment with a vibrant smile on his lips. He stared at the Sword Artifact and the Gem Jaguar’s body.
His vibrant smile transformed into a devilish grimace as the jaguar’s blood squirted all over his face. Instead of removing the blood, Daniel continued smiling. His smile grew wider than before when the energy influx finally reached him.
The Sword Artifact’s effect was triggered, replenishing the little stamina Daniel had used to slay the Gem Jaguar. A moment later, his fight continued. He moved onward, using the Tinophants as shields and to camouflage his existence.
Daniel disappeared in the group of Tinophants and emerged, his Sword Artifact whizzing through the air in beautiful arcs to decapitate the Gem Jaguars whenever their attention pulled to their prey. It was only a matter of seconds, but three corpses sprawled all over the battlefield. Daniel’s expression turned worse – if one could call it that – as his bright smile grew wider by the second. His Sword Artifact was coated in a whitish-silver aura as he cut through the monsters, reaping their lives one after another.
Even though he utilized the Tinophants as his meatshields, Daniel was forced to use the Shield Enchantment of the gemstone artifact twice.
The ordinary Shield Enchantment wasn’t strong enough to block the full force of the Gem Jaguars, but that wasn’t necessary. The Gem Jaguars smashed into the semi-transparent shield that conjured before Daniel and slowed down as they attempted to push through.
Daniel twisted the Sword Artifact in his hand and exploited the remaining momentum of the Gem Jaguars to drive the blade into their side and move along, transforming a mild injury into a mortal wound.
Daniel retracted the Sword Artifact back into his body once, only to swing around and manifest the weapon in his other hand. The momentum of his spin and the Sword God’s aura were enough to cut through the pouncing Gem Jaguar’s chest and rib cage.
The monster collapsed to the ground and tried to push its legs from the ground to get up and charge again. Unfortunately, Daniel was already above it, the Sword Artifact’s tip hanging over the Gem Jaguar’s neck. Daniel thrust downward, a loud squishing noise resounding as the blade dug through the Gem Jaguar’s hide and flesh in one go.
Multiple energy influxes swept through Daniel’s Energy Pillar and energy paths as he continued to move forward. Only two Gem Jaguars were left, but both were stressed and unable to do anything, and the dozen Tinophants retaliated. They charged slowly at the Gem Jaguars, who were forced to retreat or get bulldozed instead.
“You can’t escape,” Daniel murmured, unwilling to let the monsters go.
He utilized one of the movement techniques he’d learned while still one of the Lords in the Sacred Desert. His legs groaned in pain as the whitish-silver aura of his Soultrait flooded through his energy paths. Daniel accelerated suddenly and appeared next to the two Tier-1 monsters. He raised his Sword Artifact in a smooth and quick motion and cleaved down, beheading the beast in one go.
In the meantime, the other monster tried attacking him, but Daniel sensed the incoming attack through his heightened perception. He called the Shield Enchantment and summoned a shield, slowing the Gem Jaguar’s momentum. It wasn’t much, but enough to spin around and kick the Gem Jaguar at the side of his head.
The Gem Jaguar wriggled and collapsed to the ground, another energy influx reaching Daniel.
Under normal circumstances, the attack would have never been enough to kill the Gem Jaguar. The kick of a Tierless Awakened wasn’t supposed to be enough to kill a Gem Jaguar that easily. A Gem Jaguar wasn’t particularly resilient but wasn’t that fragile either.
Nonetheless, Daniel killed it instantly, a white blade protruding from the tip of his boot. Blood trickled down from the blade.
The fight didn’t even last a full minute. It was exhilarating, and Daniel found himself in a few tricky conditions that would have been difficult to solve without the two Artifacts he’d gotten from his brother, but he was alive. The seven energy influxes of Tier-1 monsters weren’t too bad, either.
Daniel broke into a cold sweat, but his grin never ceased.
The Sword Artifact made sure that his stamina remained high. Of course, that didn’t mean he had enough Soul Power or origin energy left to do anything special. That was fine, though. Daniel learned he could convert a portion of energy from energy influxes into Sword Aura. The Sword God’s data influx showed him that it was possible and how to do it.
Daniel had yet to finish digesting the flood of data from the Sword God Soultrait Symbol, but he was slowly getting something. Improving his understanding of his new Soultrait in combat helped him digest the influx of information.
“That was fun,” He murmured, glancing at the Tinophants staring at Daniel with wide eyes. They were frozen in their tracks and didn’t dare to move even though the imminent threat had been removed. The Tinophants considered Daniel Fang an even more dangerous threat than the Gem Jaguars.
Daniel smiled at the Tinophants and waved at them dismissively, “You can either stay or go, I really don’t care.”
The monsters didn’t understand him, but that didn’t mean Daniel had to pay anymore attention to them.
Since his War Rune was already working at full power, Daniel could convert as much power as possible into Sword Aura. He did that and stored the Sword Aura in his Soultrait Symbol for now.
Instinctively, Daniel could tell that he could store the Sword Aura somewhere else, but he wasn’t quite sure where to do that.
Maybe the Sword God’s data influx would solve that enigma soon.
Until then, Daniel was going to continue hunting. There were a bunch of overpopulating monsters waiting to be slain!