"This is one good a$$ sword!" Rosepetal eximed.
It had been almost half an hour since the Goblin''s death, and despite how much time had passed, Rosepetal could still be seen swinging the sword around and getting used to its weight while imbuing it with her mes.
"You should try resting a little, don''t ya think?" Osmygold advised.
"What are you talking about? There is no time for rest. There is only time for war!" She closed her eyes and raised her de towards the heavens exaggeratedly, making both Trishaless and Peacexelr chuckle.
"Yeah yeah... Seriously though, you should get some food into that stomach of yours. God knows when we will have time to rx like this in the next week." Osmygold sighed.
"Next week, huh... It''s a good thing that there is a time disparity between here and the outside world." Trishaless let out a relieved smile.
"For sure." Peacexelr chuckled.
A silence quickly descended on them, yet instead of it being filled with awkwardness, it was a tolerable silence that indicated everyone in the group wasfortable with one another.
They all began eating the food they had packed for the trip into the dungeon, and after a while, one of them realized something.
The atmosphere was toofortable... Especially when there is supposed to be a stranger amongst them.
"Uhm... Quick question." Peacexelr raised his hand and made the rest of them look at him with raised brows.
"Where''s our fifth?" He asked.
Again, a moment of silence fell on the group as they slowly took in his words.
Their eyes widened at the same rate, and eventually, after a good while, they all looked at each other and asked-
"Where''s Null?"
*Boom*
*SCREECH*
*ROAR*
And as if waiting for its queue, a loud explosion followed by screams of pain and roars of rage entered their ears, and when they looked in the direction of those sounds, they were all left with agape mouths, unable to form the correct words for a situation like this.
''That can''t be Null, right?'' They all asked themselves and chuckled self mockingly.
Of course, that wasn''t their teammate! No one is stupid enough to take on a whole tribe of goblins on their own, let alone someone who hadn''t even broken through to the firstmandment.
This must have been another squad that hade to vanquish the tribe... It had to be, right?
...
*ng*
*Step* *Step* *Step*
*ng*
*Step* *Step* *Step*
"I have to give you credit, I never thought that you would be this powerful..." A figure draped in dark robes spoke from behind his pitch ck mask.
He held a katana in his hands as he continuously shed with a 5ft 10 goblin. While it was slightly shorter than him, it more than made up for it in power.
It was a half-step firstmandment. It was a lot weaker than the shadow wolf he had fought against in the void world, not only due to the difference inmandments, but itsck of abilities and trump cardspared to the shadow wolf.
Monsters, in a way, were different from humans.
While many of themcked the intelligence a human had, a monster was usually always stronger than a human of the same level and would require several humans of the same level to take it down.
However, to Null, they were all the same. Humans and monsters. One made up for theirck of power with intelligence that trumped any other race, while monsters made up for theirck of intelligence with primal instincts and overwhelming power.
However, what made the Goblin before Null so dangerous was not the fact that it was extremely powerful and would take several people of the firstmandment to beat it, but it was that goblins were one of the most intelligent monsters one could find.
And at that moment, it was using its intelligence to its advantage.
"If you keep grinning like that, I''ll be forced to detach the top part of your mouth from the bottom." Null narrowed his eyes at the Goblin.
For 20 minutes, he massacred several dozen goblins and freed the humans held captive. He grew stronger by the second, but it was nowhere as fast as his speed of growth when fighting the shadow wolves.
He had not expected a monster of the half-step firstmandment to show up since the first 3 floors were supposed to be for monsters without amandment, yet when he found one half-a-step in, he did not react in the least...
*ng*
*Step* *Step* *Step*
Seeing that the spear was pointed towards him again, Null lifted his de and blocked the iing attack but was forced to take several steps back due to the power behind the attack.
''It''s trying to corner me...'' he narrowed his eyes at his opponent while ncing around.
The ditches in the ground. The alignment of the trees. Even the wind. It was all a trick. It was all formed and manipted in a way that would make it hard for Null to fight back, and it was working much better than he would have liked to admit.
However, his merciless cold eyes simply looked at his enemy while a thought shed in his mind.
Null recognized that many of his abilities became useless in the face of an intelligent enemy with a weapon and the skills to wield it.
His opponent had a spear, so using a [shadow w] was as useless as trying to punch his opponent. None of the hits wouldnd, and he would most likely get injured.<novelnext></novelnext>
His counter-attack parrybination didn''t work either, as whenever he tried to parry and counter-attack, he would always find himself on the back foot since the spear would bend at unnatural angles and attack him from all sides before he could send out a counter-attack.
He could try using [Shadow Enhancement], but that was also useless since the sun was out and the trees weren''t close enough to one another to allow him to fully envelop himself in the shadows.
Even [Shadow Travel] would have left him in a difficult spot due to how long it takes to enter and leave the shadow, only making it a good ability to use when choosing to run away.
In a way, the only thing he had left was [4-Dimensional Thought], and after seeing the situation he was in, he activated it without thinking twice.
His eyes suddenly became colder and even more distant while his mind raced with ideas and decisions, alongside several calctions that showed the likeliness of the n working.
Everything turned into a grid of sorts, where nothing but the goal mattered, and no distractions could be created.
Touching the base of his de with his index finger and middle finger, he began to trace it from the bottom to the top, but before he could finish the action, an idea sparked in his mind.
Null''s eyes remained a cold bright violet as he narrowed them once more, but after thinking for a moment, he removed his fingers from his de and instantly shot toward the Goblin of them while using [Shadow Travel].
He knew his abilities alone were not overpowered enough to give him an instant victory, but instead of crying about it, he decided to use his brain and think of the best way of winning.
He waited for a precise moment to leave [Shadow Travel], and when the time came, he left within 3 seconds and carried to the momentum he had gained in his shadow to fly toward the Goblin and let out a powerful sh that tore through the air and sliced its way to decapitate the Goblin.
However, before I could reach the Goblin, it had already reacted to his maneuver, allowing it to thrust a spear towards Null''s head.
*ng*
*Boom*
Reacting quickly, Null barely blocked the attack, yet he could not negate the power behind it, but before he could be flung into the distance due to the amount of power behind the spear, his shadow-engulfed hand grabbed onto the spear and didn''t budge an inch.
"Kukukuku-" The Goblin began tough while cocking its arm back and readying itself for a punch, yet all this got out of Null was a scrutinizing gaze that told the person before him that they were stupid no matter thenguage.
The Goblin''s face turned grim while rage red in its eyes, but due to its slow build-up and extremely obvious attack, Null activated [Shadow w] in his other hand and swiped towards the iing fist.
*Puchi*
A nk expression appeared on the Goblin''s face, yet a secondter, a terrifying screech left its mouth.
The screech alerted everyone in the area no matter what and who they were, but even behind the mask, Null did not show a change in expression.
His eyes continued to be cold and serious the entire time, and if anything, theck of emotion made it seem like he wanted to rip the Goblin''s other arm off too.
*Swoosh*
However, before his ns could be furthered, a spear struck towards his head, making him expertly dodge the attack while spinning around and unleashing a devastating sh that could not be seen by the naked eye.
pA n,dan(-)0ve1.c0m *Sching*
...
...
...
*thud*
Sheathing his de, Null''s eyes fell on the decapitated head on the ground that continued to leak out blue blood.
"It seems that despite being a half-step firstmandment, your power is quite unsatisfactory... You weren''t the strongest, nor were you the brightest." Null closed his eyes and walked towards the burning goblin vige after retrieving the golden spear that the goblin leader held.
"And in the end, that was the reason for your death..." Null muttered, and within an instant, he was covered in shadows before disappearing into thin air.
Screams continued to echo throughout the forest, yet those screams died down after a little more than a minute, yet for some, those were the final screams they could let out before dying a gruesome death.
The goblins were killed and cut up into a hundred pieces before being burned in the already existing fire. Null had no idea what hade over him, but one second he was fighting their leader, and the next, he was chasing after the rest of the weaker goblins, ensuring to exterminate everyst one of them.
"Null?" A familiar feminine voice entered his ears, yet instead of looking back at the new arrivals, his eyes remained on the being before him that seemed to beg for something.
"Sorry... Language barrier." Null muttered, and before anyone knew it, his de flew through the air and had already sliced right through the Goblin''s neck.
"H-Hey, Null. Did you do all of this? On your own?" Rosepetal asked as she moved forward in order to scan the burned-down vige.
Her red hair danced in the ember-filled winds, creating an image straight out of a fairytale as she blended in with the embers that flew past her face.
"Quite impressive." Trishaless snickered while patting Null on the back. The gesture was quite manly for someone of her size, but the same could have been said about the axe that she continued to carry on her back despite having storage rings that made carryingrge weapons like a waraxe much more convenient.
In Null''s eyes, however, it looked like a little girl trying to ovee her petite figure and feminine body by creating a barbaric personality. While she might have gained the barbaric personality after awakening her barbarian ss, people usually only felt the change in their personality after reaching the first or secondmandment, while it wouldn''t be prominent until the third.
It was more of a coincidence than anything, but there was still a minute chance that something might have affected her in the past that made her the way she is, and allowed her to awaken the Barbarian ss.
At the same time, Null could not help but think back to when hest fought against his best friend, who had continued to use short swords for the longest time. Yet despite that, he became a berserker and was forced to embark on the path of heavy weapons.
"No! This is not impressive! He didn''t follow orders and attacked an entire tribe without consulting any of us!" Peacexelr shouted and pointed at Null usingly, yet before he could carry on, Osmygold grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back in order to convey that he would deal with it.
"Null... I need you toe with me. We need to have a talk." Osmygold pulled Null aside and began to walk to a nearby tree.
On the other hand, Trishless and Rosepetal were looking at each other with the same thought in mind, but before they could voice disgruntlement on how they were thinking of the same thing, they turned around after a sound entered their ears.
The sound of Peacexelr grinding his teeth, his hands clenched, and his veins close to popping.
[Author''s note: Before anyoneins about why I am calling Lloyd "Null", I''d just like to tell you that it will make sense in a few chapters.]