Aaron almost immediately threw himself into a controlled rage as he engaged the beast lord, but a sudden, and very powerful shockwave of sonic energy curtailed his attack. The sonic wave was emitted from the Countess, and it was on a different level than what he had felt from her minions.

  The energy that filled this sonic shockwave was fiercely powerful. But it was more than just powerful. There was a darkness to it, as if powered by something vengeful and hating. And when it hit him, it didn’t just hurt and throw him backward, but he felt all of his energy and energy organs rippling out of control.

  He actually had to fight back convulsing shockwaves that put him on unbalanced feet, and had his [ Soul Vortex ] temporarily disabled.

  He looked down at his hands, vision blurring, and had to kickstart his inner energies with a powerful burst of aether into his [ Reverse Cycle Faux Core ], which got his energies circulating again.

  And to make matters worse, Countess Lorella wasn’t just standing around waiting for him to recover. In a splash of blood that streamed toward him, she dematerialized into blood and then appeared before him. It all happened in an instant, and razor-sharp claws swung out at him in furious succession. Not only that, but they were coated with empowering blood that cut streaks through the air, extending the range of her claws, and instantly opened several wounds across Aaron.

  But she still wasn’t finished yet. The blood that stained her hands and cut through Aaron’s flesh snaked into his new wounds, traveling across his skin as if it were alive. He could feel her blood entering him and poisoning his own blood. It was weakening him and damaging his tissue.

  The fight had gotten serious. Very serious. And he immediately created range, passing through one of her attacks with [ Spectral Rush ] and appearing several meters away, behind her.

  He acted fast, before she could continue the fight, and he lopped off his hand with a well-placed karate chop.

  He had gotten a little overconfident against the vampire bat minions and wanted to try to fight Lorella with the ring on. But her initial barrage had quickly taught him that this wasn’t an enemy to take lightly.

  However, it was now Lorella’s time to be surprised, and she froze for a second, canceling her follow-up attack and looking at Aaron with newfound respect. She had felt his true power unleashed when the ring was removed and understood he was no weakling. It did not last long, though, and her brow twitched as she threw herself back into the melee.

  She was still a deadly D-grade beast, and her attacks came fast. But without the ring, Aaron was no longer a sitting duck, barely able to keep up with her speed. That said, he restrained himself. Preventing himself from bursting into an uncontrolled melee with overflowing power.

  Instead, he leaned back into what he had been doing, only with more strength and speed now that the ring was off. And he dodged every strike of her initial barrage with frustrating accuracy, and could see the anger building on her pasty white face.

  The blood that dipped off her hands extended into deadly weapons from her fingers, and managed to cut open some new shallow wounds as the melee pressed back and forth. But none were direct hits, and against Aaron’s inhumane recovery speed, minor wounds meant little.

  But also, he wasn’t alone. A lot had happened in only a few seconds of combat, but as Aaron employed perfect footwork, carefully curated his movements, and avoided getting hit, thanks to reading fate, the others had caught up.

  Talia ordered the bulk of them back, ordering them to close off the exit and build a defensive perimeter. Zero, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate, and the moment he spotted the beast lord, he blasted a beam of silver light at it.

  Lorella had disengaged Aaron for barely a second when the silver light crashed into her. A blocking forearm came up to meet the energy beam, and a yellow shield flashed into existence around it. And while it no doubt saved her from much of the damage, the defensive Skill was far from perfect. The yellow light flickered, and she was thrown several meters back.

  But she wasn’t out of the woods yet, and Aaron wasn’t about to let her off the hook, and he immediately took advantage of the situation. Closing the distance between them in a flash, he unleashed a devastating combination on the staggered bat boss.

  The first few strikes were blocked by her shields, but when a [ Soul Shattering Strike ] slipped between her defenses, crashing into her chest, her yellow shields flickered out, and she had nothing to stop the haymakers that followed.

  However, just as things were looking bleak for the monster lord, an explosive wave of blood burst out from her, forcing Aaron into retreat as it appeared to be the same blood that poisoned him earlier.

  And then, she fled. Once she had some distance, she started to heal. But it was an unnatural healing ability, Aaron could tell. Within her, she had an absolutely massive store of energy bubbling away, and he had a feeling it was the very same energy she had stolen from all those poor souls she killed.

  Gritting his teeth to stop himself from falling into a rage, he flew into her. The moment they met, his strikes rained down with perfect precision, and after a short melee, she was put on the back foot again and forced into a purely defensive stance. They traded for a moment, but Aaron was getting the better of it, and she broke, retreating across the chamber with another splash of blood.

  But Talia was waiting. And an all-powerful blast of blinding light came down upon the vampire bat from her avatar’s massive sword.

  The beast lord tried to block, but the attack was far too powerful, smashing straight through her defenses, and sending her flying across the chamber and smashing into the far back wall.

  She was bloodied and beaten up when she climbed out of the rumpled hole. But again, stores of energy within her were drained, and her wounds instantly recovered.

  The beast lord’s brow bent, and a flash of angry blood energy poured out as she shot straight toward Talia, furiously wanting her revenge.

  But Talia was no pushover, and a ring of floating shields appeared around her, and they flashed with white energy as Lorella’s strikes cascaded down upon them.

  But before she could beat down Talia's defenses, Aaron and Zero attacked from both sides with a relentless tag-team assault.

  It barely lasted a second, and once more Lorella was forced into retreat as she gathered new wounds. Even as she was escaping, she was pouring energy into and recovering from deep wounds as if they were nothing. But there was no doubt in Aaron’s mind that she was quickly draining through the reserves she had stolen.

  The moment they caught up to her, a shockwave of sonic power blasted, catching them with their defenses down. It was a powerful attack, disrupting their energy and cancelling any attacks they were in the process of.

  Both Zero and Talia were staggered by this, and Talia actually had to resummon her avatar, demonstrating just how powerful the attack was.

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  But energy was kind of Aaron’s thing. And he immediately pulled from his adipose reserves, and cycled energy through his core to battle back against the disruptive attack, barely losing a step as he continued toward her and threw.

  The exchange was short, and both landed. But Aaron was cool and collected. His skill in hand-to-hand combat when calm was simply too much for her, and the power gap between him and a D-grade wasn’t what it had once been.

  He dodged far too many of her strikes and landed far too many of his own. And after eating several particularly hard strikes, Lorella was in flight once more.

  Cursing under her breath, the vampire bat hissed and groaned. It was clear that the monster lord understood her predicament. This was a losing battle. When she tried to reposition herself, and in an attempt to turn the tide against Aaron, a flash of silver light brought Zero to her side, and a split second later, claws opened new wounds across her.

  Maybe against one of them she’d have stood a chance, but with attacks coming from all angles, it was simply too much. And with another burst of blood, she fled, flying as fast as she could deeper into the cavernous lair.

  Aaron wasted no time, shooting straight after her, grabbing his ring on the way out, and throwing it into his scabbard.

  Only seconds behind him were Talia and Zero, with the rest of their party remaining where they were to seal up the exit.

  Passing down into the lower chambers, Aaron sped ahead, relying on the spiritual energy filling his eyes to light the darkness.

  He continued further down, making it all the way to her main chamber without spotting any sign of the vampire bat. But an explosion rippled through the cavern, loosening debris and rocks. And a second after that, a scream echoed out behind him, and he swung back around.

  “Talia!”

  It only took seconds to shoot back up, tracing his path, and he found Talia at the losing end of a blood-fueled rampage. It seemed that Lorella had tried to escape, tripping several mines laid by their resident explosive expert, and Talia had intervened.

  But most of the group provided little help against the monster lord, and Talia had quickly been put on the defensive.

  Luckily, she was still standing, thanks to her defensive Skill, but it wasn’t looking great, and the shields were flickering dangerously, as if they were about to be extinguished.

  The two clashed as Aaron sped toward them, and as claws swung down on Talia, and the shield cracked around them, ribbons of blood cut across her armored frame, opening wounds across Talia’s body.

  But that wasn’t all, Lorella inhaled, and the blood from the wounds was pulled into her, recovering some of her reserves.

  But before she could make much of her situation, Aaron came from behind, landing with a series of lightning-fast attacks that immediately disrupted her little plan. Chasing the bat down, he didn’t let up, and a second later, he landed a [ Soul Shattering Strike ] using up much of his remaining adipose reserves.

  The beast lord was good at siphoning energy, but Aaron was better. And he could feel that she was running low.

  But Lorella wasn’t about to give up, and she turned to flee into the dark once more. Unfortunately for her, Zero was there, blasting her with a beam of silver energy and following up with clawed attacks and bites.

  She tried to disengage, turning to the side, but Aaron was right there, waiting for her. And his strikes were perfect. Despite the chaos of the melee and his evasive enemy, he had kept control of himself and wasn’t going all madman.

  He picked his strikes, and he flowed from one to another, seamlessly avoiding Lorella’s counters as he hit hard and beat down her remaining defenses in seconds.

  Hit all over, the beast lord actually fell from the sky when a simple punch slammed straight into her stomach. The crashing, crushing blow sent her hurtling into the ground.

  Aaron looked down as her body thudded loudly into the ground, but before he could act, a vengeful, blinding light came crashing down, slamming straight into the newly formed hole where the vampire monster lay, and burning light filled the hole with extraordinary power.

  Countess Lorella hissed in agony, her flesh melting away as the white light cleansed her evil shell. Filled with rage, she tried to claw her way out of the hole. And another burst of blood energy tried to fight back the burning while light, and recover her wounds.

  Talia’s attack was strong, but the blood energy just kept coming. A store of power built up from consuming many lives.

  But the moment the white light faded, Aaron took its place, ready to lay down a beating, and immediately landed with another [ Soul Shattering Strike ], that beat the last bit of blood energy out of the stubbornly hard to kill beast lord, and the haymaker he followed up with, crushed her face in.

  You killed: Countess Lorella [ Level 120 ]

  Bonus Experience rewarded for killing a creature of a higher level than yourself!

  [ Empty-Handed Energy Monk ] has LEVELED UP!

  68 → 71

  Purchasable Skill Available!

  Despite gaining three levels and having a new Skill to purchase, that wasn’t what caught Aaron's attention, looking down at the corpse.

  Even in death, he could feel the stolen blood energy rich in Lorella’s veins. As if it had enriched her body in a fundamental way. A disconcerting thought hit him. He could use this corpse, but what was he if he did?

  They’re already dead…

  If the body could be used to strengthen their settlement, was doing so wrong? He couldn’t undo what had happened to those people, but he could make use of what remained. Let their sacrifice better humanity. If he were in their place, he would wish the same for himself.

  Reluctantly, he took the body and threw it into his scabbard. Such a resource couldn’t be wasted, even if it felt wrong to consider its use.

  **Somewhere in the jungle**

  The battle had been hard fought, lasting several hours, and the jungle floor was proof of that. Burn marks were all over the place, and pools of acidic saliva sizzled away at the vegetation. More than a thousand corpses of ants littered the ground as the lone marmoset chieftain stood his ground against the endless horde.

  At first, the ants had barely been a problem. The marmoset chieftain himself was a D grade already, and his tribe members were in the upper levels of E grade. The ant workers were instantly crushed as soon as they went too far into their territory.

  Then came the soldiers. The marmosets crushed them as well, turning their bodies to ash with powerful lightning surges. More soldiers followed, this time stronger. The marmosets won again, but it was not as easy. The time after that was even more difficult.

  For a week after that, the attacks had stopped. The chieftain thought that the ants had given up. Today, his assumption had proven incorrect. Calamitously so.

  The ant army covered the jungle, turning the ground black. Most were soldiers, but there were elites mixed in, and in the ensuing battle, many of the marmosets had perished. The worst part, and the part that infuriated the chieftain most, was how little the ants cared for their own lives. They charged in suicidally, dying to get their comrades a few meters further. Each of the lightning marmosets had killed dozens of ants, but against the never-ending insect tide, it didn’t matter.

  When the first marmoset fell. Its corpse was immediately taken by the ants. Workers near the body suddenly lost interest in the battle entirely, casually carrying the body back while the rest fought on.

  Now, all that was left was the chieftain, surrounded by ants, with his tribe nowhere to be seen. They had all perished and been carried away. He was still alive, for now, but his reserves of energy were not endless. Perhaps if he fled, he could have escaped through the trees. There were a few winged ants, but none were fast enough to catch the D-grade primate.

  However, the thought of fleeing never crossed his mind. He was enraged, felling ants by the dozen in mindless fury. Surrounded by a pile of charred carapaces, he fought on. The ants were no match for him. He was nearly level 120, and not a single one of his foes was even D grade. In his berserk final stand, hundreds of ants fell to him alone.

  But in the end, it was not enough. More ants took the place of the ones that fell, and the marmoset grew weary. Its attacks grew weaker as its reserves dwindled, and its awareness dimmed as exhaustion took its body. The first ants to reach him could not break his skin with their mandibles, but their weight slowed him down further, allowing more to latch on, draining the rest of his Stamina and Vitality before he finally perished.

  The moment it perished, the ants all responded as one, changing their directive from battle to collection. The marmoset’s body was taken, alongside the bodies of their fallen comrades, and less than an hour later, the area of the jungle was empty. Not a single body had been left behind. The ants had taken them all back for their queen.

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