Klaus woke up with an icy headache. As he looked around, he saw that he was still in the same place, but everything around him was now coated in ice.
“Congratulations, Klaus, on creating your first skill,” the Senior’s voice echoed from his soul sea.
“Really? I actually succeeded?” Klaus’s face lit up with joy. He quickly opened his status window to check his gains, but to his surprise, the skill wasn’t listed. It hadn’t been recorded.
“You’ve created a skill, but you haven’t named it yet, so it’s not recognized as a true skill,” the Senior explained.
“Senior, how do I name it?” Klaus asked.
“Just activate the skill and speak its name,” the Senior replied. Klaus nodded and, almost instinctively, a lotus flower made of pure ice bloomed into existence. The temperature in the entire area dropped to below freezing level.
“Damn, this iciness alone is enough to freeze many people,” Klaus muttered, feeling the cold around him. “This feels different from the Fireball. I can actually control how much energy is used.”
Klaus smiled and thought for a moment. After a while, his smile brightened. “I will name it ‘Nine Stars Ice Lotus Bloom.'”
As soon as he spoke the name, the heavens rumbled and dark clouds began to form overhead. “Senior, what’s happening?” Klaus asked, panic creeping into his voice.
“You’ve created a skill that surpasses the standards of your world. Naturally, the heavens will try to destroy it,” the Senior replied casually, making Klaus wonder if the Senior actually wanted him to fail.
“Senior, what should I do?” Klaus asked urgently.
“It’s your skill. You must do whatever you can to defend it. Destroying the skill means destroying you,” the Senior said.
Klaus felt the cold air and his mind raced with calculations. Above him, the clouds continued to darken and become more menacing.
“Dammit, this Paragon thing is a scam. I haven’t even enjoyed my life yet, and the heavens are always looking for ways to kill me. How is creating a skill a bad thing?” Klaus cursed, glaring at the heavens.
Within his soul sea, the Senior muttered to himself, “They’re scared because it’s the Nine Paragon Stars Ice Lotus Bloom.” He sighed and then fell silent.
Outside, Klaus continued cursing at the dark clouds. Then, suddenly, he stopped and grinned. “Well, if you want to kill me so badly, how about we go for a little stroll?” With that, Klaus jumped down from the mountain and began adding points to his stats. He put 200 points each into Strength, Agility, Defense, and Stamina. Then, he added 300 points to Intelligence and 400 to Health.
With a determined smile, he dashed forward towards the Central Region of Ruin City, rumored to be filled with nothing but zombies.
As expected, the ominous clouds followed him, continuing to form as they had during his tribulation. Klaus estimated it would take about five minutes, just like before. He entered the Central Region at full speed, sword drawn and ready for action.
“White Zombies—just as I thought, there are only zombies here,” Klaus said, his smile widening. An ice arc shot from his sword, slicing through a dozen zombies that were devouring a huge monster.
Immediately after his first attack landed, Klaus sensed hundreds of zombies moving toward him. He smiled and a flame appeared in his left hand. With a swift motion, he hurled the fireball forward.
The white zombies, a few kilometers away, saw the fireball approaching. They stopped and quickly turned to retreat. But it was too late. The fireball soared over them and continued deeper into Ruin City.
As it moved, the fireball expanded to the size of a dozen basketballs before it exploded. Flames swirled and consumed everything in its path. Since Klaus was now at a safe distance, he didn’t feel the heat. Additionally, with his boosted defense, his resistance to the flames had improved significantly.
The fireball consumed thousands of zombies, killing them instantly. Klaus sensed more zombies approaching from afar. He smiled and quickly formed another fireball, sending it even deeper into the forest.
Within three minutes, Klaus had used the fireball three times and leveled up to Level 9, but only after killing thousands of zombies. He checked his messages and confirmed that all the zombies were Tier 3. He knew more were coming, and the clouds had already formed overhead.
“Hehe, sharing pain with friends like you is the greatest honor one could ask for,” Klaus said with a grin as he moved toward the approaching zombies.
His sword glowed crimson, and with a powerful slash, he cut a path through the zombies. He dashed deeper into the city, as lightning began to rain down from the dark clouds above. The zombies felt their movements restricted and started falling.
The lightning bolts created holes in some zombies split others in half, and left many charred from the intense electrical burns.
For Klaus, it felt like being a fish in water. The zombies around him stood frozen and then began to fall as he moved swiftly through the Central Region. Surprisingly, the zombies dying from the tribulation were contributing to his EXP and Ranking Points, which filled Klaus with immense joy and drove him to cover more ground.
Suddenly, he sensed Tier 4 zombies. Unlike the others, these zombies weren’t frozen, but their movements were sluggish. Klaus rained down a mix of ice and fire attacks, helping them enter the Yama Kingdom for good. However, more and more Tier 4 zombies began to appear, causing Klaus to worry.
He wasn’t invincible. He needed the zombies to spread out the tribulation lightning evenly. Using his Lotus Flower move now would draw all the lightning to himself, so he had to endure and increase his speed and rate of killing.
Suddenly, the heavens rumbled, and a colossal lightning python appeared. As it showed its massive head, Klaus grinned. “Not this time, pal. You can’t lock me down today.” He felt a powerful force trying to restrain him, but his star qi circulated, allowing him to break free.
The Tier 4 zombies weren’t so lucky. The python descended on them, turning them into charred pieces. “Good, follow me, Partner. We have a lot to do,” Klaus said with a nod toward the snake, then continued running deeper into the forest.
The lightning followed, killing thousands of zombies every second. Klaus’s laughter echoed through the air.
Klaus continued to move swiftly, cutting through the zombies as lightning followed him, killing thousands every second. The scene was a chaotic storm of death and destruction. His sword flashed crimson as he cut down zombies left and right, each swing sending more of them to the ground. The constant lightning strikes made his work easier, creating a path of destruction wherever he went.
“At this rate, I will be clearing the entire forest within minutes if all this goes well” Klaus muttered gliding through the forest. Everywhere he passes hundreds of Zombies will fall.
The lightning pythons’ strikes proved invaluable, tearing through the hordes of zombies. Klaus’s excitement grew with each zombie he killed, his laughter ringing out in the storm. He danced through the battlefield, feeling invincible with the divine power of the heavens helping him.
Suddenly, an intense attack struck the lightning python. The colossal serpent writhed in pain before it was obliterated. Its form shattered into fragments of light that dispersed into runes. These runes flowed through the air and merged into Klaus’s body.
As the runes entered him, Klaus felt a surge of new power. However, before he could fully grasp the new development, a new wave of zombies emerged. These were different—stronger and more menacing.
“Zombie Captain” Klaus immediately recognizes the new batch of Zombies as the Zombie Captains. Back in the Zombie Forest, he killed a few. However, now before him are hundreds if not thousands of Zombie Captains each a Tier 4 Dark Zombies.
“I guess this place is really dangerous, even the Captains are this imposing, how about the Generals” Klaus shuddered imagining that. However, he immediately recognizes he is not alone, he has the heavens supporting him. And just like he had expected, before the Zombie Captains could move, the clouds rumbled.
From the dark clouds, more than ten lightning pythons emerged, their enormous forms crackling with energy. At once, a great pressure descended on the entire forest. Klaus immediately circulated his Star qi and like before, he broke free. However, the Zombie Captains weren’t that lucky, Immediately the lightning Pythons appeared, their fate was sealed. Seeing this, Klaus’s laughter erupted.
Klaus’s laughter grew louder and more triumphant as he witnessed the pythons’ devastating effect. “You think you can challenge me?” he yelled, his voice full of excitement. “Bring it on! This is just getting started!”
He dashes forward and starts to attack with renewed vigor, his sword moving faster than ever. The Zombie Captains struggled to keep up with the lightning-fast strikes. Each swing of Klaus’s sword was met with a burst of ice or fire, powered by the lightning pythons’ energy.
The battlefield was a tempest of chaos. Zombies were reduced to ashes, their numbers dwindling rapidly under the combined assault of Klaus’s attacks and the lightning strikes. The sky roared with thunder, adding to the frenzied atmosphere.
Klaus felt invincible. He relished the power flowing through him, driving him to push harder. “You think this is all you’ve got?” he taunted the Zombie Captains. “I’m just getting warmed up!”
As the lightning pythons continued their assault, Klaus darted between the monsters, his movements a blur of speed and precision. The new zombies fell quickly under the relentless onslaught, their bodies disintegrating in the fiery and icy fury.
More and more Zombie Captains appeared, but Klaus was too lost in his frenzy to notice. His mind had drifted away from the tribulation, his entire focus locked on the slaughter at hand. Nothing else mattered.
As he continued to kill, Klaus began to feel something stirring deep inside him. It was a dark, primal urge—a need to shed more blood. This overpowering desire consumed him, pushing everything else from his mind as he carved his way deeper into the forest.
Then, without warning, an enormous pressure surged from within the forest. The air grew thick, and in an instant, the Lightning Pythons froze. They shattered into glowing runes that rushed toward Klaus, disappearing into his body. As they did, an even greater force erupted from within him, and one of the star tattoos on his back blazed to life.
Suddenly, a bloodthirsty voice boomed from the depths of the forest. “Human, die!” it roared.
Before Klaus could react, a massive club came hurtling toward his head.